<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Human Rights</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/human-rights/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:24:55 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Reyhaneh Jabbari&#8217;s Execution Shows Emboldened Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reyhaneh Jabbari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244655</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the weakness of the U.S. is creating more victims inside the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244656" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8-409x350.jpg" alt="1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8" width="290" height="248" /></a>Despite the surge in executions and human rights violations in the Islamic Republic, the mainstream media and some Western politicians still depict the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and his governmental technocrat team as moderate or reformist.</p>
<p>Recently, a 26-year-old Iranian woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari, was executed in Iran’s prison for allegedly killing the man who raped her. Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, the alleged rapist, was a former employee in Iran’s intelligence ministry. The trial of Jabbari lacked fair and due process.</p>
<p>The intriguing issue is that this execution led to a considerable amount of international outcry from human rights groups. Many requested that the Islamic Republic’s president, Hassan Rouhani, rescind the death sentence against Jabbari.</p>
<p>Normally, when there is significant international pressure, the Islamic Republic has tended to shift the death sentence or postpone it. But the fact that the Iranian government went ahead and executed this women highlights the increasing empowerment and emboldened sentiments of the Iranian regime as it defies, as well as disregards, the international condemnation.</p>
<p>Several crucial factors, including President Obama’s projection of weak foreign policy, leadership, as well as his administration’s appeasement policies toward the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign policy, play crucial roles in emboldening and empowering the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>In addition, the new wave of acid attacks against Iranian women appear not to raise any concerns in the Iranian government with regards to its  global and regional image.</p>
<p>A new report by a United Nations Human Rights investigator further highlights the surge in executions and human rights violations, and it underlines the fallacy of the narrative that President Hassan Rouhani is distinct from other Iranian politicians, such as his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p>
<p>The new report was provided by a United Nations human rights investigator, Ahmad Shaheed, who was a former diplomat from the Maldives and currently special rapporteur on human rights issues in the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>Shaheed, who has been denied to entry into the Islamic Republic, conducted his report by amassing hundreds of interviews and substantiated records of human rights abuses, including those executions officially reported by the Iranian government. Although he did not directly blame Rouhani, Shaheed recently addressed and briefed the United Nations General Assembly on Iran’s human rights record, which corresponds with the timing that Rouhani had been in office.</p>
<p>The surge in human rights abuses appear to have been carried out on several crucial platforms. First of all, there is an alarming increase in the number of prison and public executions in comparison to the prior year.</p>
<p>In 2012, under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the recorded number of executions was 580 people. This indicates that there has been an increase of approximately 45 percent in executions under Rouhani. In 2013, 687 people were executed.</p>
<p>In addition, the range of charges for executing Iranian citizens appears to have been widened. The legal reasons behind executions include political, economic, human rights activism, and drug trafficking. Addressing a General Assembly human rights committee this week, Ahmad Shaheed pointed out this &#8220;surge in executions in the country over the past 12-15 months.&#8221; Shaheed added, &#8220;At least 852 individuals were executed in the period since June of last year, including eight juveniles.&#8221;</p>
<p>The second manner of human rights violation is targeted at those who are engaged in freedom of information, particularly journalists. In addition, other reporters and posters, such as bloggers, Facebook users, and people who are active on social media, have been restricted as well. The number of journalists who have been detained in the Islamic Republic have also ratcheted up. According to Shaheed, there are currently 35 journalists under detention in Iran.</p>
<p>The third phenomenon appears to represent the concerns regarding the persecution of religious minorities, including the Christians, Sunnis, Dervishes, and Baha&#8217;i community. Currently, 120 people of the Baha&#8217;i community, as well as 49 Christians, have been documented to be in prison in Iran solely for religious practices.  Some members of the Arab community, characterized as “cultural rights activists,” as well as juveniles, have also been put to death sentence.</p>
<p>The fourth category of human rights abuses is linked to the restrictions on and deterioration of women&#8217;s rights in the Islamic Republic. For example, the Iranian government has also imposed a quota on the admission of Iranian girls to universities. According the UN human rights reports, the number of Iranian women being enrolled at universities has come down to 48 percent.</p>
<p>President Rouhani was elected by the majority of Iranian people as a moderate candidate who would potentially promote civil liberties, social justice, and individual freedoms (including freedom of speech, assembly and press).</p>
<p>Instead of taking a more robust position towards the Islamic Republic when it comes to dealing with the Islamic Republic, President Obama will more likely disregard the recent surge in egregious and appalling human rights abuses due to the administration&#8217;s extreme focus on striking a final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. The comprehensive nuclear deal would ultimately remove political and economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The United States should concentrate more on human rights violations in Iran by incorporating this issue with the country’s nuclear defiance.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Brings the Ferguson Lynch Mob to the U.N.</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/obama-brings-the-ferguson-lynch-mob-to-the-u-n/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-brings-the-ferguson-lynch-mob-to-the-u-n</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/obama-brings-the-ferguson-lynch-mob-to-the-u-n/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 04:54:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241777</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Radical-in-Chief maligns the U.S. before the world. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/BN-ER866_ObamaU_G_20140924132401.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241786" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/BN-ER866_ObamaU_G_20140924132401-450x300.jpg" alt="BN-ER866_ObamaU_G_20140924132401" width="311" height="207" /></a>President Obama used an opportunity on the world stage this week to encourage America&#8217;s enemies to continue promoting the tired old left-wing narrative that the U.S. is an irretrievably racist hotbed of injustice.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Instead of just focusing on the topic of the day, namely, what the U.S. government is planning to do to undermine </span><span class="zw-portion">the extraordinarily brutal </span><span class="zw-portion">Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS)</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> Obama suggested that his own country&#8217;s race relations problems are on par with leading world crises. And Islam is perfectly innocent. Only bad people who aren&#8217;t </span><span class="zw-portion" style="font-style: italic;">real</span><span class="zw-portion"> Muslims are causing trouble in the world.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">It&#8217;s bread and circuses, with America&#8217;s own Caesar running the show.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">According to Obama, the </span><span class="zw-portion">killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, a black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in itself is proof that race relations are poisonous in the United States. As the Left sees it, </span><span class="zw-portion">Brown was the latest in a long line of helpless black victims mowed down by racist cops who are part of America&#8217;s corrupt criminal justice system. It&#8217;s just more left-wing sloganeering, staples of which are k</span><span class="zw-portion">nee-jerk cop hatred and making excuses for black criminals.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Anti-American fanatics, such as the Iranians, </span><span class="zw-portion">have used the events in </span><span class="zw-portion">Ferguson as propaganda to defame</span><span class="zw-portion"> the United States. Obama is telegraphing to the Islamist totalitarians that they are on the right track and have entirely legitimate criticisms.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">I realize that America</span><span class="zw-portion">’</span><span class="zw-portion">s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within its own borders</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; Obama told </span><span class="zw-portion">the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in a speech that focused on foreign policy and national security issues.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">This is true</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; he told the gathering of delegates from nations that enslave people, chop off their hands and heads, mutilate their genitals, and sanction the gang rape of infidels, women, and youngsters. He continued:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri &#8212; where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So, yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Apart from the vile moral equivalency, that is, the implied comparison of the Brown shooting with Islamist atrocities, Obama never bothered to point out that </span><span class="zw-portion">there is still not even a scintilla of evidence that what transpired last month in Ferguson was in any way racially motivated. Investigators keep digging and coming up empty-handed.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Nor did he point out that his administration is leading the way, trying to inflame racial and ethnic tensions. </span><span class="zw-portion">Egged on by violent left-wing mobs and race-obsessed profiteers like Obama allies Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson Sr., </span><span class="zw-portion">t</span><span class="zw-portion">he U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a race-baiting witch hunt aimed at the entire police force in Ferguson.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">It is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded Democratic Party voter registration drive disguised as a civil rights investigation. </span><span class="zw-portion">Such hoaxes are the stock in trade of the radical community organizers who run the Obama White House.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">But it&#8217;s a costly hoax. </span><span class="zw-portion">At least 40 federal agents have reportedly been on the ground in the St. Louis area desperately searching for proof of racial animus on the </span><span class="zw-portion">part of Darren Wilson, the decorated Ferguson police officer who shot Brown Aug. 9 after the suspected gang member beat him and tried to take his handgun.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">That figure of two-score agents is apparently more than the Obama administration has assigned to all the other major scandals embroiling the administration combined. Those other scandals include Hillary Clinton&#8217;s Benghazi bungling, IRS persecution of conservative groups, New Black Panther Party voter intimidation charges, the Fast and Furious gun-running episode, and the NSA&#8217;s domestic spying.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">The rest of Obama&#8217;s UN speech consisted of bromides and inane mantras about the Islamic world he holds so dear.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Although Islam has been generating terrorists and Islamic supremacists for over a millennium, Islam&#8217;s been done wrong by those who have hijacked it, Obama argued.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">A &#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">more lethal and ideological brand of terrorists</span><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion"> have </span><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">perverted one of the world</span><span class="zw-portion">’</span><span class="zw-portion">s great religions</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; he said. These terrorists are &#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">employing the most brutal methods to intimidate people within their communities</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; he said, without mentioning that his allies in SEIU and Saul Alinsky-inspired activist groups do much the same to American communities.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Obama glossed over the centuries of Islamic irredentism and religious violence to claim that, notwithstanding the often-graphic verses of the Holy Koran, that &#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">Islam teaches peace.</span><span class="zw-portion">&#8221; In his view, &#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; he said without mentioning that to many Mohammedans the world over justice consists of Jews&#8217; and Christians&#8217; severed heads on public display.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Obama even said that &#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">we reject any suggestion of a clash of civilizations</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; even though a clash of civilizations is precisely what is taking place.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Now that Obama&#8217;s approval ratings on national security and terrorism have taken a beating, the president feels he needs to sound like an actual president who cares about the good of the nation and is willing to use the nation&#8217;s military might in a just cause.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">What ISIS is doing is outrageous, Obama complains. But his </span><span class="zw-portion">hatred of ISIS is conditional, based on polling. As long as voters are concerned about ISIS, he&#8217;ll pretend to be concerned about ISIS.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">No God condones this terror</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; he said</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">No grievance justifies these actions. There can be no reasoning &#8212; no negotiation &#8212; with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. So the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death.</span><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">This is likely the same pep talk Obama gave to former IRS enforcer Lois Lerner as she geared up to harass and intimidate Tea Party nonprofits.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">In Obama&#8217;s eyes, o</span><span class="zw-portion">nly American conservatives, not medieval Islamic savages, are permanent foes worthy of eternal enmity.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/obama-brings-the-ferguson-lynch-mob-to-the-u-n/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>29</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Phony Anti-Terrorism Fatwa</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/saudi-arabias-phony-anti-terrorism-fatwa/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=saudi-arabias-phony-anti-terrorism-fatwa</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/saudi-arabias-phony-anti-terrorism-fatwa/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 04:26:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[caliphate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extremism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241310</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the House of Saud is really worried about. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/King-Abdullah-of-Saudi-Arabi.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241320" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/King-Abdullah-of-Saudi-Arabi-347x350.jpg" alt="(FILES) A picture taken on December 30," width="263" height="265" /></a>It is a popular aspect of media mythmaking about the Islamic State that it is <i>so</i> extreme that even other “extremists” such as al-Qaeda shun and repudiate it. But this claim, like the many declarations by both Muslim and non-Muslim leaders that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, is always left unexplained and unsupported.</p>
<p>The recent Saudi statement against terrorism is yet another example of this. The credulous and ignorant will wax enthusiastic over this display of Saudi “moderation,” but in reality — yet again — the closer one looks, the less there is to see.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/09/17/in-anti-terror-edict-top-saudi-clerics-say-perpetrators-should-be-punished/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Associated Press</span></a> reported that</p>
<blockquote><p>Saudi Arabia’s highest body of religious scholars issued a stern ruling on Wednesday calling terrorism a &#8220;heinous crime&#8221; and saying perpetrators including Islamic State militants deserve punishment in line with Islamic law.</p>
<p>The Council of Senior Religious Scholars said in its fatwa, or religious edict, that it backs the kingdom’s efforts to track down and punish followers of the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.</p></blockquote>
<p>The House of Saud is in trouble. They’ve spent billions to propagate worldwide the view of Islam held by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. They perhaps never envisioned the prospect of a caliphate practically on their doorstep, and challenging their own legitimacy: the monster they created is returning to haunt them, and they know that if they join any military action against the Islamic State, they could face an uprising at home from young Muslims who have imbibed the understanding of Islam that they have so energetically taught. Hence this fatwa: they hope to delegitimize now what they have spent billions to legitimize, and convince their own people that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam and must be rejected.</p>
<p>AP, as biased as it is, seems aware that this is the point of this fatwa: to preserve the Saudi monarchy. “The clerics,” it reported, “are appointed by the government and are seen as guardians of the kingdom’s ultraconservative Wahhabi school of Islam. The statement by the group of 21 scholars underpins the kingdom’s broader efforts to deter citizens from joining extremist groups that want to bring down the Western-allied monarchy.”</p>
<p>The report noted that Secretary of State John Kerry had gone to Saudi Arabia last week and “planned to ask Mideast countries to encourage government-controlled media and members of the religious establishment to speak out against extremism.”</p>
<p>How ironic: the understanding of Islam that Saudis have worked so hard to spread throughout the world is now “extremism.” But the Saudi statement points at others as the “extremists”: “The council’s condemnations extended to others the Saudi government opposes as well, including the Shiite Hawthi rebel group in Yemen and Saudi Hezbollah, a Shiite militant movement that was engaged in attacks in the kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s. It also criticized what it called ‘crimes of terrorism practiced by the Israeli occupation.’”</p>
<p>It sounds as if this is the Saudi Islamic scholars’ version of the hit on the Five Families. But note the hypocrisy: the Saudis are against the jihad terrorism of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Hizballah, but also against the foremost target of the global jihad, Israel — which shows that they’re not really against jihad terror at all. And what they’re <i>really</i> against is anything that would upset the House of Saud: “One of the greatest sins,” says the statement, is “disobeying the ruler.” This essentially makes it explicit: this is all about preserving the House of Saud, not about genuinely rejecting terrorism.</p>
<p>Yet “to help back up its religious ruling, the council referred to words of the Prophet Muhammad, who warned against following those who want to divide the nation.” The Islamic State, however, doesn’t want to “divide” Saudi Arabia. It wants to incorporate all of it into the Islamic State. But the scholars dismiss the new caliphate as a terrorist group: “The scholars added that any Muslim who thinks jihad — or striving in the path of God — means joining a terrorist group ‘is ignorant and has gone astray.’”</p>
<p>These scholars, remember, are in the country that for years has been the chief financier of jihad terrorism worldwide. But in any case, “the head of the council and grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheik, described the Islamic State and al-Qaida as Islam’s top enemies.”</p>
<p>“Islam” in that case means “Saudi Arabia.”</p>
<p>Amid all these condemnations of terrorist groups was one notable omission: “Notably absent from the council’s list is the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi authorities have outlawed and also branded as terrorist.” The Brotherhood also has significant support in Saudi Arabia, but it doesn’t pose a threat to the Saudi state at the moment. Thus there is no need to mention it and risk angering even more of the population than this present declaration will rile up.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&amp;contentid=20140918218606"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Saudi Gazette</span></a> offered more detail, saying that the Saudi Scholars Commission and Ifta Council “said terrorism, which is rejected by Shariah, is contradictory to the principles and purpose of Islam, which came as a mercy to the world and for the goodness of mankind.”</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia is, of course, a Sharia state. It regularly practices beheadings, amputations, and the like. It subjugates and oppresses women. This is what the Saudi Scholars Commission and Ifta Council means by a “mercy to the world.” When they condemn “terrorism,” they don’t mean by the word what most Americans think of. They mean “anything that threatens the Saudi state.”</p>
<p>They likewise redefine “tolerance”: “Tolerance is the essence of Islam, which came to maintain coexistence and peace on earth, the senior Ulema (Islamic scholars) said at the conclusion of the Council’s 80th session.” Tolerance? Remember: these apostles of Islamic tolerance believe that someone who has a Bible or a crucifix deserves arrest, imprisonment, and deportation or death.</p>
<p>The Orwellian redefinition machine went into overdrive when the scholars said: “Terrorism has nothing to do with jihad, and Islam rejects the deviant thought which causes bloodshed.” Except, that is, for the blood of apostates, heretics, adulterers, and all the others whose blood is called for under Sharia. The statement “described terrorism as any crime aimed at corrupting and undermining security, offenses against lives or property, homes, schools, hospitals, factories, bridges, state facilities or oil and gas pipelines, or blowing up or hijacking aeroplanes.”</p>
<p>And yet they condemn Israel, even though Hamas jihadists target Israeli lives and property, homes, schools, etc. What they really mean here is that terrorism involves offenses against <i>Muslim</i> lives and property.</p>
<p>Finally, “the council urged everyone to utilize all means to strengthen unity and cohesion.”</p>
<p>That is, utilize all means to strengthen the House of Saud. That is what this statement against terrorism is all about. Which will not keep it from being an object of celebration for the naïve and credulous.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Robert Spencer</strong> on this week&#8217;s Glazov Gang discussing<span id="productTitle" class="a-size-large"><strong> The Fog of Jihad-Denial</strong>:</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/S8kxWhX0S50" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><a id="js_10" class="profileLink _5f0v" tabindex="0" href="https://www.facebook.com/annmariemurrell" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1258545911"></a></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/saudi-arabias-phony-anti-terrorism-fatwa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>24</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Iran&#8217;s Human Rights Lectures</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/irans-human-rights-lectures/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-human-rights-lectures</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/irans-human-rights-lectures/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 04:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ayatollah ali khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240924</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Diverting attention away from the atrocities of the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ayatollah-Ali-Khamenei.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240927" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ayatollah-Ali-Khamenei-444x350.jpg" alt="Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during Friday prayers in Tehran" width="325" height="256" /></a>Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has recently been lecturing the United States and the West on human rights, particularly through Twitter. Recently, the Ayatollah <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/18/ayatollah-khamenei-lectures-americans-ferguson-bla/">tweeted</a>,</span> “Based on global statistics, US gvt is the biggest violator of #HumanRights.” The Supreme Leader added, “Besides int’l crimes, it commits crimes against its ppl. #<span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ferguson/">Ferguson</a></span>.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Ayatollah talks about global statistics, but where are these numbers?  His claims could actually spur a real discussion if the Iranian government and Khamenei could cite his claim that the “US govt is the biggest violator of #HumanRights.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, let us take a deep look at some of the recent developments on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic that are not unsubstantiated claims, but have been very well documented.  However, these reports unfortunately have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media.</p>
<p><strong>The Recent Atrocities Against the Religious Minority, the Baha’i</strong></p>
<p>The Islamic Republic has ratcheted up its religious and cultural cleansing of the Baha’i community and the Baha’i faith in Iran. Last week, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began its <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-bahai-rights/26566169.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">destruction</span></a> of the Baha’i cemetery in Shiraz, Iran. The cemetery includes several buried men and women who were executed by the Iranian regime itself.</p>
<p>Three of the United Nations experts on human rights in Iran <a href="http://iranpresswatch.org/post/10761/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">pointed out</span></a> that “We are dismayed by reports that excavation work has resumed at the cemetery, where at least 950 members of the Bahá’í faith were buried.”</p>
<p>Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Heiner Bielefeldt stated, “Cemeteries, like places of worship, are an essential part of how people exercise and manifest their right to freedom of religion or belief. Their significance goes beyond their physical presence,” <a href="http://iranpresswatch.org/post/10761/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">adding</span></a>, “attacks on cemeteries are unacceptable and are a deliberate violation of freedom of religion or belief. The Government of Iran must take urgent action.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://news.bahai.org/documentlibrary/TheBahaiQuestion.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">persecution</span></a> of the members of the Baha’i religious minority is systematic in Iran. Those who follow this faith are being discriminated against in several realms including economic, educational, cultural, and career landscapes.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://iranpresswatch.org/post/10761/">According</a> to</span> Ahmed Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on Iran, there are currently 126 members of the Baha’i faith who are imprisoned in the Islamic Republic on simple  charges such as coordinating religious gatherings and speaking up for their rights.</p>
<p>Khamenei should answer this question before ranting about other countries: where is the protection of religious minorities and human rights within the Islamic Republic?</p>
<p><strong>Recent Executions and Public Hangings Under President Hassan Rouhani’s Rule</strong></p>
<p>The rate of executions continues to rise under the rule of the so-called moderate president of the Islamic Republic. Only during the last two weeks, approximately forty-five people were hanged publicly across several cities in Iran. Some of these people were women.</p>
<p>For example, on <a href="http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/17137-iran-human-rights-public-hanging-of-prisoners-continues-unabated"><span style="color: #0433ff;">September 3</span><span style="color: #0433ff;"><sup>rd</sup></span></a> one person was publicly hanged in the city of Savadkuh, located in northern part of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>On September 1st, several thousands of people protested the public hanging of a young person in the city of Mahmoudabad.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime&#8217;s henchmen had to stop the execution due to the risk they encountered from the protesters. <a href="http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/17130-iran-human-rights-at-least-40-prisoners-executed-in-2-weeks"><span style="color: #0433ff;">According</span></a><span style="color: #0433ff;"> to</span> the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Iran’s state news reported that “3000 people who roared, shouted and resorted to physical action by attacking the security cordon caused the execution to be cancelled.” However, the next day, on <a href="http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/17137-iran-human-rights-public-hanging-of-prisoners-continues-unabated"><span style="color: #0433ff;">September 2nd</span></a>, the Iranian regime increased its security forces and went ahead with publicly executing the young person in the city of Mahmoudabad, located in northern part of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>On September 1st, at least <a href="http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/17130-iran-human-rights-at-least-40-prisoners-executed-in-2-weeks"><span style="color: #0433ff;">ten prisoners</span></a> who protested in the Iranian regime prison were collectively executed in the Ghezel Hessar Prison in city of Karaj near Tehran. On August 24th, two prisoners were hanged in public in the city, of Sari. On <a href="http://iranhr.net/2014/08/two-public-hangings-in-iran/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">August 21</span></a>st and 19th, two other people were hanged in public in city of Qazvin and Khoy.</p>
<p>The “moderate” mullah, President Hassan Rouhani, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are setting a record in human rights violations. So far, approximately <a href="http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/17130-iran-human-rights-at-least-40-prisoners-executed-in-2-weeks"><span style="color: #0433ff;">1000</span></a> people have been executed since he took power a year ago. Hassan Rouhani has not raised even a  minimal concern about these egregious human rights abuses and public hangings.   In addition, all these executions are approved by Iran’s Islamist judiciary system which is under the control of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the public floggings, public amputation of people’s fingers, and other brutal tactics continue to rise across the Islamic Republic. Iranian people see the Iranian regime&#8217;s brutality and barbarian punishments in the streets and in public. The Iranian regime and the mullahs attempt to impose fear in its population by publicly conducting amputations, flogging, executions, etc.</p>
<p>By lecturing the United States about human rights, Khamenei is either totally delusional, or he is smartly attempting to divert attention from the atrocities, brutality, high rate of public hangings, and persecutions of religious minorities that continue to rise under the theocratic and Islamist regime of the Ayatollah and mullahs.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/irans-human-rights-lectures/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The UN&#8217;s Perversion of Human Rights</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 04:02:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UNHRC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240428</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Investigating the IDF instead of Hamas for "war crimes."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/22nd-session-of-the-human-rights-council-at-the-united-nations-in-geneva.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240429" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/22nd-session-of-the-human-rights-council-at-the-united-nations-in-geneva-450x328.jpg" alt="Delegates talk before the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva" width="296" height="216" /></a>If one doubted that the world has gone topsy-turvy, where good is being persecuted and evil labeled as victim, all that is needed for proof is to consider the behavior and actions of the United Nations (UN), and especially the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where non-democratic regimes hold sway, and Israel is the habitual scape-goat. What is over the top, however, is the UN decision to send an Inquiry Committee to investigate alleged “war crimes” committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the recent Protective Edge operation in Gaza.</p>
<p><i>Reuters</i> reported (Monday, August 11, 2014) that the UN named experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel&#8217;s military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The so-called “experts” include William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law who will head the panel, and Doudou Diene, a Senegalese veteran UN human rights expert.  Amal Alamuddin, a British-Lebanese lawyer engaged to be married to Hollywood actor George Clooney was also named, but Alamuddin has announced she will not be participating in the inquiry.</p>
<p>While the fighting in Gaza was ongoing and Hamas was firing rockets daily at civilians throughout Israel, the UNHRC had already condemned Israel. Its resolution was adopted by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against, and 17 abstentions. It stated that “The Council strongly condemns the failure of Israel, the occupying power, to end its prolonged occupation of occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem; and condemned in the strongest terms the widespread, systematic, and <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14897&amp;LangID=E"><span style="color: #0433ff;">gross violation</span></a> of international human rights and fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations carried out in the occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014 that may amount to international crimes, directly resulting in the killing of more than 650 Palestinians, most of them civilians…” Throughout the resolution Hamas’ name was not mentioned nor was it pointed out that Hamas provoked the conflict by deliberately firing rockets at Israel.</p>
<p>Even before the Israeli–Hamas ceasefire agreement went into effect, the UNHRC in Geneva rushed to set up a kangaroo court headed by the blatantly anti-Israel William Schabas. The same Schabas said last year that he “would like to see <a href="http://mida.org.il/2014/08/13/schabas-netanyahu-head/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Netanyahu</span></a> within the dock of the International Criminal Court.” Confronted by a reporter on his visceral hatred of Netanyahu, Schabas explained that he was echoing the Goldstone Report that related to Operation Cast Lead of 2008-2009, except that it was Ehud Olmert and not Netanyahu who served as Prime Minister then. When asked if he considered Hamas a terrorist organization and whether Hamas too, will be investigated, Schabas declined to respond.</p>
<p>Speaking before Israeli naval cadets on Tuesday (September 2, 2014), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the UN hypocrisy. He stated that “All of you IDF soldiers are part of the most moral army in the world, and we will stand against any attempts of hypocritical organizations to criticize you. If the <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184691"><span style="color: #0433ff;">UN</span></a> wants to set up a commission of inquiry – let them investigate Hamas’ war crimes instead of the Israeli soldiers who behaved in an exemplary manner.”</p>
<p>In the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), both the coalition and the opposition criticized the UN for dispatching a commission of inquiry to Gaza to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. They were likewise critical of the appointed head of the commission William Schabas, whose biased statement against Israeli leaders made the commission nothing but a kangaroo court.</p>
<p>During the Protective Edge operation in Gaza last month, the IDF dropped leaflets in 14 areas in Gaza, urging residents to temporarily leave their homes. The IDF provided instructions as to which areas civilians may go to in order to seek safety. Juxtapose that with the Hamas’ behavior of deliberately risking the lives of its people by using them as human shields, which is in contravention of international law and constitutes a war crime.</p>
<p>British army Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan had this to say (July 27, 2014) about the IDF, “I believe that on the basis of everything that I&#8217;ve seen, that everything the IDF does to <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4548821,00.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">protect civilians</span></a> and to stop the death of innocent civilians is a great deal more than any other army, and it&#8217;s more than the British and the American armies.”</p>
<p>What is most disturbing about the UNHRC is the hypocrisy when it comes to Israel. The UNHRC Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented its findings on August 27, 2014. In it was a detailed human cost of the Syrian conflict. It charged that both the Assad regime and the opposition groups, and in particular the fanatical jihadist ISIS, were responsible for mass killings (170,000 at the minimum), civilian suffering and disregard for the safety of women and children. ISIS in particular committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, murder, enslavement of women, public executions, amputations, lashing in public squares, and training children as young as ten in military camps.</p>
<p>While the truth about ISIS committing war crimes and crimes against humanity have been largely revealed, those committed by Hamas (publicly executing 20 Palestinians for alleged collaboration with Israel) in Gaza have not, at least not by UNHRC. Professor Michael Curtis pointed out that Hamas’ relentless aggression against Israeli civilians was publically exposed on July 9, 2014 by Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian representative to the UNHRC. Khraishi stated that “The rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel are each and every one a <a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5197/comparing_crimes_against_humanity_hamas_and_isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">crime against humanity</span></a> whether they hit or miss, because they are directed at civilian targets. That is why Israel resorted to an attack against Gaza.”</p>
<p>Hamas, with total disregard for its civilian population, stored rockets in hospitals, schools, and mosques, as well as in apartment buildings and private homes. It used the civilians at these locations as human shields, anticipating that an Israeli retaliation (following over 4000 rockets fired at Israel) would kill Palestinian civilians, particularly women and children. Hamas sacrificed its people in order to win the public relations war. Still, the international media by and large bought into Hamas’ charade. Hamas’ cynical exploitation of its civilian deaths, its use of human shields, and the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>To understand the perversion that is the UNHRC, let us look at the UN as a whole. Of the 193 member states, 120 belong to the Non-Allied Movement (NAM) and of the 120, 57 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which in turn is dominated by the 22 Arab League states. Arab/Muslim leverage has turned the UN into a blunt instrument against Israel. The 29 states who voted in favor of the blatantly prejudiced resolution are non-free states according to the Freedom House. The U.S. was the only state to vote against the resolution. The European Union states of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, all with a colonial past, and beset by guilt, abstained. They were fearful to upset the NAM.</p>
<p>The UNHRC is probably the best example of a world gone topsy-turvy. The non-free nations run the show at the UN while the free democracies cower before them. In the process, Israel, a country with a just cause, a praise worthy democracy in a sea of oppression, is being scapegoated and condemned. It is time for nations seeking justice and fairness to end this bizarre show called UNHRC, and reestablish a UNHRC based on nations with bona fide human rights credentials.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>John Kerry’s Paean to the Religion of Peace</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/john-kerrys-paean-to-the-religion-of-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-kerrys-paean-to-the-religion-of-peace</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/john-kerrys-paean-to-the-religion-of-peace/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2014 04:35:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240299</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The "real face of Islam" according to the Secretary of State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/kerry-syria-chemical-attack.si_.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240304" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/kerry-syria-chemical-attack.si_-397x350.jpg" alt="kerry-syria-chemical-attack.si" width="276" height="243" /></a>Secretary of State John Kerry should have extended his Nantucket vacation.  That would have spared him and the nation from his embarrassing remarks praising Islam as a “peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings,” which he delivered just a day after ISIS released a video showing American journalist Steven Sotloff being beheaded.</p>
<p>Kerry was speaking at a ceremony honoring the State Department’s new special representative to Muslim communities, Shaarik Zafar. Rather than call on Muslim leaders around the world to publicly condemn ISIS in the strongest possible terms and do everything possible to counter ISIS’s recruitment campaign, ideology and financing, Kerry coddled them.</p>
<p>“I want to take advantage of this podium and of this moment to underscore as powerfully as I know how, that the face of Islam is not the butchers who killed Steven Sotloff. That’s ISIL,” Kerry said. He added that the real face of Islam is “one where Muslim communities are advocating for universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the most basic freedom to practice one’s faith openly and freely.”</p>
<p>Where exactly in Muslim-majority countries today is a non-Muslim free to practice his or her faith “openly and freely”?  Ten out of the sixteen countries deemed of particular concern regarding their abuses of religious freedom are Muslim nations, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2014 Annual Report. The governments of these countries engage in or tolerate particularly severe violations of religious freedom, the report states.</p>
<p>The Commission makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. Evidently, Kerry has not read the Commission report’s findings regarding the state of religious freedom in Muslim-majority countries or did not take them seriously.  It also appears that Kerry has not read or understood the implications of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, based on Sharia law, which is diametrically opposed to the principles underlying the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.</p>
<p>The Universal Declaration’s organizing principle is that “[A]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”</p>
<p>The Universal Declaration promotes the ideal that self-governing human beings all have certain inalienable rights such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law. These universal rights apply to all human beings equally, whichever geographical location, country, race, culture or religion they belong to.</p>
<p>As the Islamic response to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam in 1990.</p>
<p>The Cairo Declaration reaffirmed “the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith.”  After reciting a litany of human rights that it pledged to protect, the Cairo Declaration subjected all of its protections to the requirements of Islamic law:</p>
<blockquote><p>Article 22 (a)</p>
<p>“Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.”</p>
<p>Article 24</p>
<p>“All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari&#8217;ah.”</p>
<p>Article 25</p>
<p>“The Islamic Shari&#8217;ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.”</p></blockquote>
<p>By making Islamic law the sole authority for defining the scope of human rights, the Cairo Declaration sanctioned limits on freedom of expression, discrimination against non-Muslims and women, and a prohibition against a Muslim’s conversion from Islam. Such restrictions are completely at odds with the fundamental human freedoms spelled out in the Universal Declaration.</p>
<p>“The reality,” Kerry said, “is that our faiths and our fates are inextricably linked.” He is right about that, but not for the reasons he suggests.  Jihadists with access to sophisticated weapons, money and willing recruits, including from the West, are seeking to determine our fates, which in their minds is a stark choice between subservience to Islam or death. The supremacism that permeates the Koran itself provides the jihadists with “moral” justification in their perverted world view. The sayings and actions of their Prophet Muhammad provide the jihadists with their roadmap. As an example, Islam’s prophet was quoted as saying, &#8220;Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.&#8221; (Ibn Ishaq 992)</p>
<p>Secretary of State Kerry, perhaps suffering from a case of post-vacation sunstroke, used part of his remarks at the ceremony to connect what he called the “duty or responsibility” to confront climate change with the “scriptures, clearly, beginning in Genesis.” Then, remembering that he was speaking at a ceremony honoring his new special representative to Muslim communities, Kerry immediately tried to tie his elevation of climate change to Biblical heights with his concern for the fate of Muslims. He said that “Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable.”  Right after that, he added: “Our response to this challenge ought to be rooted in a sense of stewardship of Earth. And for me and for many of us here today, that responsibility comes from God.”</p>
<p>The Koran quotes the Muslim supreme deity Allah as declaring:  “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.&#8221; (Koran 8:12) Is Allah the “God” whom Kerry looks to as the source of responsibility for our “stewardship of Earth”?</p>
<p>John Kerry takes his cue from President Obama. The president has focused his attention on the United States’ supposed failure to adequately protect Muslims’ human rights and recognize their sensibilities, instead of holding the Muslim world to account for its own problems. While ISIS’s barbarism does not represent the behavior of most Muslims, ISIS is not an isolated phenomenon as Obama and Kerry would try to have us believe. ISIS is an outgrowth of Islamic supremacism, which many so-called mainstream Muslim imams and teachers believe, preach and teach. They do so not only in Muslim-majority countries, but also in mosques and schools in the West. Until the United States leads the free world in directly confronting and defeating the ideological wellspring of jihad that feeds violent groups such as ISIS and stealth jihadists seeking to infiltrate our institutions from within, we will be deluding ourselves while playing whack-a-mole against the violent threat du jour.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/john-kerrys-paean-to-the-religion-of-peace/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Islam and Human Rights</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islam-and-human-rights/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-and-human-rights</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islam-and-human-rights/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2014 04:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apostate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223588</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why there can never be compatibility between the two. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/militants1n-3-web.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223589" alt="militants1n-3-web" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/militants1n-3-web-450x343.jpg" width="315" height="240" /></a>Recently, I met a Syrian Salafist while speaking to Leaders of Democracy Fellows about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Islam and human rights violations in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The individual who lives in Syria, and who seems to sympathize with Jubhat Al- Nusrah (Al-Nusrah Front), drew several distinctions between Islamic objectives of the global Jihad movement, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and Jubhat Al-Nusrah.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The argument was that these powerful movements in Syria and beyond attempt to create an Islamic state anchored in Shari’a law, the teachings of Islam, Muhammad, and Allah. But the difference between Jubhat Al-Nusrah and ISIL, according to the person, was that the mission of the Jubhat Al-Nusrah aims at only establishing Islamic social order and an Islamic state in Syria. Whether this mission spreads to other countries is not a part of their objectives, though other countries can adopt this political Islamic platform if they desire.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the other hand, the objectives and mission of ISIL is a return to the Caliphate system and establishment of an Islamic state throughout the region. In other words, creating an Islamic state and Shari’a law-based government in Syria or in Iraq is not sufficient and will not fulfill the desire of God, Muhammad, and Islamic teachings.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Currently, we can contend that Syrian oppositional groups are functionally dominated by Jihadists from around the world, other Islamist groups, and external groups attempting to create an Islamic order and pursue their own ideological goals.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regarding these Islamic movements, my major question is on where human rights stand for them, regardless of the minor or significant differences between these Islamist oppositional groups.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Recently, a seven-year-old boy died because fighters believed him to be an apostate. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a 15-year-old Syrian boy was also killed in the northern city of Aleppo in front of his parents because the Islamist groups believed what the boy said was heretical.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some of the proponents of Islam and Islamic laws would point out that the ideology and religion of Islam sit at the heart of human rights standards and are totally compatible with the modern notion of human rights. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But when I delve into the issue, and going into the nuances and details of the question, they seem to dodge answering. How can Islam be compatible with a modern notion of human rights and gender equality, when social and legal laws of Allah’s words in Quran, depict women as inferior to men in every aspect?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Article three of the universal declaration of human rights, states that &#8220;Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.&#8221; But in Islamic countries, a person who rejects and abandons Islam has no right to life. According to Islam, unbelievers commit the gravest sin in Islam.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While article four of the universal declaration of human rights says “one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms,&#8221; slavery is officially recognized and accepted in Quran.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Article five states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Cases of stoning, lashings, and other violent acts are rampant in Islamic countries.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How can Islam be compatible with human rights when, according to Muslims and the Quran, Allah specifically states in the Quran that a woman’s testimony in a court of law is considered half the value to that of a man?</span></p>
<p><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not found then a man and two women.&#8221; </i>[<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Qur&#8217;an (2:282)]</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A Muslim told me that scientific data shows women’s logical and speaking neurological center in brain are at the same place, and as a result, they are more forgetful than men! And so, this is why God made their testimony worth half. I was totally confounded and baffled by this ungrounded logic.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How can Islam be compatible with human rights when according to Muslims and the Quran, Allah states that women inherit less than men in several instances?</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">They ask thee for a legal decision. Say: Allah directs about those who leave no descendants or ascendants as heirs. If it is a man that dies, leaving a sister but no child, she shall have half the inheritance: If a woman, who left no child, Her brother takes her inheritance: If there are two sisters, they shall have two-thirds of the inheritance: if there are brothers and sisters, the male having twice the share of the female. Thus doth Allah make clear to you , lest ye err. And Allah hath knowledge of all things. (Quran 4:176)</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">All Muslims are expected to follow and implement the rules of Islamic inheritance clearly stated in the Quran, verbatim words of God, accordingly.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, how can the ideology of Islam be in line with human rights when abandoning Islam triggers punishments, including execution? Or does the law that allows a man to marry four wives respect the rights of women? Do these Islamic laws comply with the article one of the universal declaration of human rights that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The aforementioned laws reveal how women are restricted and seen as inferior. While men can marry any women from any other religion, Muslim women are not allowed to marry a non-Muslim.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There are also the rights of an accused person to a fair trial, which is mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. While a women’s testimony is worth half, non-Muslims are not permitted to testify against Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These are only samples of the contradictions and incompatibilities between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Islamic laws and doctrines. The critical phenomenon is that as long as the Quran is perceived to be the words of God—and hence should be implemented word by word— and as long Islam views itself as part of the state, I think there can never be compatibility between the modern notion of human rights and Islam.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islam-and-human-rights/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>23</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Islamic State of Iran and Gender Discrimination</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Feb 2014 05:35:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hanging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oppression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219504</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why is the international community silent about Iran's atrocities against women? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-Hanging-Iran-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219505" alt="Woman Hanging Iran 2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-Hanging-Iran-2-300x350.jpg" width="240" height="280" /></a>Only a few days after a United Nations Special Rapporteurs announcement on the situation of human rights in Iran, a woman was hanged by the Iranian regime in the Lorestan province, as the local media reported.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even with the seemingly moderate President Hassan Rouhani leading the Islamic Republic of Iran, no action has been taken to address the discriminatory legal and social laws regarding women and young girls. Women are not allowed to exercise basic civil rights in Iran as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To be more specific, some of the laws in the Islamic Republic totally contradict internationally accepted human rights standards, reinforcing the superiority of men over women. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In verse 34 of the Quran, which is increasingly cited by Islamic officials, “men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance &#8211; advise them; forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This verse has been applied to various areas of Iranian law. For example, when it comes to criminal law in the Islamic law of Iran, girls can be held criminally responsible at the ages of 8-9 years old, while criminal responsibility for boys begins at 15 years old. Why should girls be regarded as mature adults at 8-9 years old?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If a woman is killed in Iran, her blood money (money the family receives in compensation) is not equal to that of man. Women are worth half of that of a man. For criminal laws, according to Islamic Sharia law, sexual intercourse outside of marriage is punishable through the stoning of men and women. However, evidence indicates that women have been stoned at a greater proportion than men.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Honor killing is still practiced in provinces such as Eilam, Khuzestan, Kordestan, Fars, Lorestan, Azerbaijan, and Kermanshah, while the Iranian regime ignores these cases. In addition, a woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man’s testimony, based on criminal law.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, while women are required to wear a Hijab, backed by Article 683, which states: “Those women that appear in the streets and public places without the Islamic hijab, shall be sentenced from ten days to two months’ imprisonment or fined from fifty thousand to five hundred thousand Rials,” there is no similar law and penal code for men.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regarding family law, girls are legally allowed to marry at 8-9 years old, while boys must be at least 15 years old. Further, the father is the natural guardian who can marry off his daughter; even if the girl is an adult, she cannot marry someone on her own. Wives and daughters cannot leave the country without the official permission of their husbands or natural guardian. They also cannot obtain a passport without the consent of their husbands.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Muslim men can marry women from other religions (religions of the book), while women cannot marry a non-Muslim unless the man converts to Islam.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Also under family law, it goes without saying that the woman can only contract one marriage at one time, but there is no restriction on the number of wives a man can have. Though many follow Quranic verses that allow four wives, under the Shia Islamic belief system, a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mut’a</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> (temporary marriage) can provide a loophole.  In </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mut’a</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Muslim men are allowed contract an unlimited number of temporary marriages, for a fixed period of time.</span></p>
<p>Article 1105 of the Civil Code states, “In relations between husband and wife, the position of the head of the family exclusively belongs to the husband.”</p>
<p>One of the most appalling laws is <i>Tamkin</i>,<i> </i>meaning submission or obedience. To be more specific, <i>Tamkin</i> has been defined as the full accessibility and unhampered sexual availability of the woman to her husband. Sexual availability is considered a woman’s duty and a man’s right.</p>
<p>When it comes to employment laws, Article 1117 of the Civil Code indicates “The husband can prevent his wife from an occupation or technical profession which is incompatible with the family’s interests or the dignity of him or his wife.” Men can initiate a unilateral divorce.</p>
<p>In family law and inheritance rules, women only receive half as much as their brothers or other male relatives. Even if a husband dies, the wife will receive only one-eighth of the inheritance if she has a child. The law also prevents women from being judges.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The protection of every person’s human rights “without distinction of sex” are enshrined in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hypocritically, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a signatory of the ICCPR, and while there is a so-called moderate president in power, the discriminatory laws against women remain intact.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Executed For &#8216;Waging War on Allah&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/executed-for-waging-war-on-allah/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=executed-for-waging-war-on-allah</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/executed-for-waging-war-on-allah/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Feb 2014 05:40:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hashem Shabaani Nejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war against god]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218683</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The mullahs send a gruesome message with the killing of a dissident poet.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Hashem-Shabani-Nejad.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218684" alt="Hashem-Shabani-Nejad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Hashem-Shabani-Nejad.jpg" width="312" height="242" /></a>An Iranian poet and human rights activist was hanged in an unidentified prison on January 27, according to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/news/press-statements/1000000428-iri-executes-two-ahwazi-arab-men.html" target="_blank">the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p>According to local human rights groups and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the charges against the 32-year-old poet, Hashem Shabaani Nejad, were listed as “waging war on God,” being an &#8220;enemy of God,&#8221; spreading &#8220;corruption on earth,&#8221; and threatening “national security.” He was arrested in early 2011 and spent his time in prison until his order of execution came.</p>
<p>Freedom House issued a statement on February 5th, pointing out that Shabaani was subjected to severe torture and interrogation during the three years he spent in prison.</p>
<p>According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Shabaani was not executed alone, and was killed along with his friend Hadi Rashedi. Both Shabaani and Rashedi were members of the Dialogue Institute. The Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Iran found Shaabani and 13 other people guilty of &#8220;waging war on God&#8221; and promoting &#8220;corruption on earth&#8221; a few months ago. All these people were hanged in January.</p>
<p>According to BBC Persian news outlet, the executed men&#8217;s families were informed of the hangings by officials from the Ministry of Information. The families were also told that they would subsequently be notified of the location of Shabaani&#8217;s burial site. According to reports, the condemned poet was moved from his original prison to an unspecified location before his execution was done.  This is a common tactic and practice by Iranian officials, Iran’s Elite Revolutionary Guards Corps and Iran’s secret police when they plan to execute someone.</p>
<p>The 32-year-old was popular throughout the nation because of his poetry, promotion of literature, and was the founder of the Dialogue Institute. In 2012, Shabaani appeared on Iran&#8217;s state-owned Press TV, and was forced to confess to &#8220;separatist terrorism,&#8221; according to human rights groups</p>
<p>It comes as a surprise that the so-called moderate president of the Islamic Republic of Iran presided over this execution spree and approved the executions of the poet and the human rights activist. Depicted by the West and liberal media as a civilized, different, educated, and conciliatory political figure, Hassan Rouhani is viewed as a person who is on the opposite spectrum of the hardliner former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p>
<p>Last Monday, Rouhani ordered the hanging of the poet and human rights activist. This occurred despite the fact that last month the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, as well as Christof Heyns (the UN’s expert addressing the executions), urged Iran to halt the surge in executions.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So what did this 32-year-old man really do?</span></p>
<p>Why was he convicted of “waging war on God,” being an &#8220;enemy of God,&#8221; spreading &#8220;corruption on earth,&#8221; and threatening “national security”? What was the crime that was horrendous enough to deserve a hanging? Did he go out and started throwing bombs at mosques or governmental infrastructure? Did he terrorize people or kill other citizens? Did he use any violent tactics?</p>
<p>No. His crime was using his pen. His crime was writing. Even in reading his poems, one would notice that there is nothing really controversial in them. There were poems depicting the beauty of his city and the lives in his community. In one of his poems he talks about “the blonde sun of Khuzestan.” Though in some poems and writings, he does talk about social inequality, he never incites any movement against the government.</p>
<p>According to The Jerusalem Post, Shaabani wrote in a letter: “[I] never participated in any armed activity, whatever the motives. I disagree with armed activities if there are other peaceful channels to make demands and express our wishes and aspirations.”</p>
<p>Shaabani continues in a letter he wrote to his family from prison on how he was not capable of ignoring the “hideous crimes against [minorities] Ahvazis, perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, particularly arbitrary and unjust executions,” adding, “I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have, which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these atrocious crimes except the pen.”</p>
<p>Under Sharia and Islamic Shiite laws, the punishment for writing is being convicted of “waging war against God,” punishable by hanging. It is crucial to point out that this 32-year-old man is not the first poet to be hanged for using his pen. According to Taheri, an Iranian journalist who reported in Asharq al-Awsat, “Shaabani is not the first Iranian poet to be murdered by the mullahs. The left-wing poet Sa’id Sultanpur was abducted on the day of his wedding on Khomeini’s orders and shot dead in a Tehran prison. Rahman Hatefi, writing under the pen-name of Heydar Mehregan, had his veins cut and was left to bleed to death in the Evin prison.”</p>
<p>In addition, hangings based on perceived religious deviation have ratcheted up under the presidency of this &#8220;moderate&#8221; Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani. In fact, numbers show that human rights abuses are not only the same on the entire Iranian political spectrum, from “reformists, hardliner, or moderate Iranian presidents,” but in fact the atrocities have surged under reformist or moderate presidents such as Khatami, Rouhani, Rafsanjani, etc.</p>
<p>When the law of the land is based on Sharia and Shiite Islamic law of the ruling cleric like in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the crime for writing a poem becomes punishable by hanging and execution. While the international community is focusing on getting nuclear deals with Iran, it seems that any hope for condemnation for such actions has fallen to the wayside.</p>
<p><strong>Addendum:</strong></p>
<p>The Iranian journalist Amir Taheri, who has written of Shabaani’s poetry (which is mostly non-political) quoted Shabaani’s verse a few days after the poet&#8217;s killing by Iran&#8217;s presidential and judicial order.</p>
<p>&#8220;<b>Seven Reasons Why I Should Die</b></p>
<p>By Hashem Shaabani</p>
<p><i>For seven days they shouted at me:<br />
You are waging war on Allah!<br />
Saturday, because you are an Arab!<br />
Sunday, well, you are from Ahvaz<br />
Monday, remember you are Iranian<br />
Tuesday: You mock the sacred Revolution<br />
Wednesday, didn’t you raise your voice for others?<br />
Thursday, you are a poet and a bard<br />
Friday: You’re a man, isn’t that enough to die?&#8221;</i></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/executed-for-waging-war-on-allah/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>37</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Islamist State of Iran: Leader in Human Rights Violation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islamist-state-of-iran-leader-in-human-rights-violation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamist-state-of-iran-leader-in-human-rights-violation</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islamist-state-of-iran-leader-in-human-rights-violation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 05:27:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[report]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217642</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Responding to the Mullahs' phony human rights indictment of the U.S.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-hangings-from-cranes.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217644" alt="iran-hangings-from-cranes" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-hangings-from-cranes-450x301.jpg" width="270" height="181" /></a>The Iranian military published a flimsy and unsubstantiated 28-page report this week criticizing human rights in the United States. Intriguingly, the report was supported by the Basij, a militia governmental group that is a leader in human rights violations, according to numerous international organizations. Several of its leaders have been convicted of crimes against humanity, and cannot leave the Islamic Republic of Iran.</span></p>
<p>Ahmed Esfandiyari, the lieutenant commander of the Basij force, was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency as saying that similar reports on the human rights situation about other Western countries would be released on a regular and quarterly basis.</p>
<p>Iranian military leaders were excited about the ceremony for the publication of the 28-page report on human rights and the US held Monday in Tehran. The reports lacks any statistical data for supporting its conclusions, and it fails to provide any credible arguments to back its thesis. It draws on cases arbitrarily, such as the case of George Zimmerman.</p>
<p>Speaking of Iran&#8217;s record, Esfandiyari mentioned that human rights issues are at the foundation of the Iranian government and that Iran&#8217;s emphasis on human rights is &#8220;extensive.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is ironic that Iranian Ayatollahs, Mullahs and leaders are boasting about their human rights records while the nation is carrying out egregious human rights abuses, according to various international organizations.</p>
<p>These facts are documented by credible international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, rather than by a militia group that itself carries out crimes against humanity. It is worth noting that these facts are the official ones, there are many covert human rights violations being carried out in Iran and other Islamic countries that are not recorded by human rights organizations or Amnesty International since they cannot be adequately verified.</p>
<p>Iran tops many credible lists compiled about human rights violations, lack of democracy, and constriction of rights including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and political participation of the citizenry. Iran tops the rank in arbitrary arrests and detentions, capital punishment, stoning, unequal rights for women and men, widespread abuses against members of recognized and unrecognized religious and ethnic minorities— this groups includes Christians and Baha’is who have been discriminated against and continue to encounter arbitrary detention and unfair trials, and be denied educational opportunities and jobs.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, according to Human Rights Watch, Iran also engages in systematic discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  According to the organization, &#8220;Iran is one of only seven countries with laws allowing executions for consensual same-sex conduct.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Several branches of the Iranian regime have been accused by international organizations of human rights abuses, including the volunteer paramilitary force, the Basij, the judiciary, as well as security forces like the elite Islamist Revolutionary Guards Corps.</span></p>
<p>According to Amnesty International, just since the beginning of 2014, the Islamist state of Iran has carried out a total of 40 executions. According to reports, at least 33 of these executions were carried out in the past week alone. These executions are officially acknowledged by the Iranian regime.  Public executions were also carried out this month, on January 14<sup>th</sup> in a city called Saveh, Markazi Province, in the northern part of Iran.</p>
<p>“The spike in the number of executions carried out so far this month in Iran is alarming. The Iranian authorities’ attempts to change their international image are meaningless if at the same time executions continue to increase,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. Iran&#8217;s Islamist authoritarian rulers have abused their own people for decades, since 1979.</p>
<p>In 2013, thousands of students, political activists, human rights activists, filmmakers, lawyers, advocates for gender equality, Iranians with ties to Western countries, journalists, ethnic and religious minorities, and religious dissidents have been arrested, jailed and executed by the Iranian regime. Many of these victims did not receive due process. Many are tried in the military courts of Iran’s notorious Revolutionary Guards Corps.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to Sahraoui, “Revolutionary Courts which routinely fall far short of international fair trial standards. The reality in Iran is that people are being ruthlessly sentenced to death after unfair trials, and this is unacceptable.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran’s constitution legitimizes these human rights abuses by adding Sharia or Islamic laws to almost every article. For example, when it comes to arresting bloggers and torturing those who exercise free speech or press, a certain article states, &#8220;publications and the press are free to express their ideas unless these contravene the precepts of Islam or harm public rights. These conditions will be defined by laws.&#8221; This gives the Islamist regime the legal apparatuses to arrest, torture, jail, kill and execute people.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These recent happenings are only the tip of the iceberg of human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unlike Iran’s 28 page unsubstantiated report collected by an institution accused of crimes against humanity, the aforementioned reports about Iran’s human rights abuses are collected by credible international organizations that do not record anything until it is completely verified by the concrete evidence.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islamist-state-of-iran-leader-in-human-rights-violation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Right Fights Evil &#8212;- The Left Fights the &#8216;Redskins&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dennis-prager/the-right-fights-evil-the-left-fights-the-redskins/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-right-fights-evil-the-left-fights-the-redskins</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dennis-prager/the-right-fights-evil-the-left-fights-the-redskins/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2014 05:20:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North Korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Redskins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217493</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the U.N. focused on last week while it was ignoring the atrocities of North Korean and Iran.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1383873869000-AP-Redskins-Protest.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217496" alt="1383873869000-AP-Redskins-Protest" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1383873869000-AP-Redskins-Protest-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>A news item this past week made this point with glaring clarity. It reported a meeting that the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights had on Friday.</p>
<p>Before revealing the subject of that meeting, let&#8217;s review for a moment what is happening in the world regarding human rights.</p>
<p>North Korea continues to be an affront to the human species. That North Korea, whether or not it had nuclear weapons, is not a central concern is an indictment of humanity.</p>
<p>That the West, with the noble exception of Canada under Stephen Harper, is appeasing the dictators of Iran, is an indictment of the West.</p>
<p>Add to this list the U.N.&#8217;s and the world&#8217;s ignoring of the Chinese government&#8217;s continuing suppression of all dissent and its decades-long violent eradication of Tibet&#8217;s unique and ancient culture.</p>
<p>Then add the slaughter of millions in Congo over the last decade, the 100,000-plus killed in Syria just last year, most of them civilians killed by their own government, and the blowing up, burning alive, and throat-cutting of untold numbers of innocent people by violent Islamists on a daily basis.</p>
<p>In other words, if what bothers you most is evil — the deliberate infliction of cruelty on people by people — North Korea, Congo, China, Syria and radical Islam will bother you more than anything else on the world scene.</p>
<p>So, then, what was the subject of the meeting convened Friday by the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights?</p>
<p>The alleged racism of the name of the National Football League&#8217;s Washington team, the Redskins.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s right. All these horrific evils are happening as you read this, and the second-ranking official in charge of human rights at the United Nations had a meeting about the name Washington Redskins.</p>
<p>The U.N. is not alone in paying undue attention to the Redskins&#8217; name.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This left-wing obsession with a non-evil exemplifies the left&#8217;s moral universe. That universe is preoccupied with lesser evils while nearly always ignoring the greatest evils. </span>The left in the United States is nearly obsessed with it. President Barack Obama has spoken out against it. The Washington Post editorial board has demanded that the team drop the name. In the herd-like way that governs media, innumerable columnists and sports writers have written passionate columns against the name, and increasing numbers of sports writers have vowed to never again write or speak the name.</p>
<p>Preoccupation with real evil is the greatest difference between right and left. The right was preoccupied with fighting Communism while the left (not liberals such as JFK, but the left) was preoccupied with fighting anti-Communists.</p>
<p>The right today is preoccupied with fighting Islamism; the left is preoccupied with fighting &#8220;Islamophobia.&#8221;</p>
<p>One way of putting it is that the right is preoccupied with fighting evil and the left is preoccupied with fighting those who fight evil.</p>
<p>The right is preoccupied with defending Israel against those who wish to annihilate it. The left is preoccupied with Israeli apartments on the West Bank.</p>
<p>This difference was made manifest last week in the address given by the one world leader to exemplify the right&#8217;s preoccupation with evil, Canada&#8217;s prime minister, Stephen Harper. Talking about all the condemnations of Israel, Harper said:</p>
<p>&#8220;Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: a state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history, that is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism. It is nothing short of sickening.&#8221;</p>
<p>Only a conservative leader would have the moral courage to say that. Because while the right fights evil, the left fights the Redskins.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dennis-prager/the-right-fights-evil-the-left-fights-the-redskins/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>22</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bedbugs &amp; Islamists at the U.N.</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/bedbugs-islamists-at-the-u-n/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bedbugs-islamists-at-the-u-n</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/bedbugs-islamists-at-the-u-n/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Jan 2014 05:03:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamophobia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim world]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=216843</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pat Condell explains the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5Ana9w3uSNA" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/bedbugs-islamists-at-the-u-n/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Beneath the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Charm Offensive</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jan 2014 05:05:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hanging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stoning]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=215028</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While leftist European diplomats were regaled in Tehran, almost 40 Iranians were executed. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-execution_crane.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-215029" alt="iran-execution_crane" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-execution_crane-400x350.jpg" width="320" height="280" /></a>Even after the secret deals revealed by several outlets including <i>The Washington Times</i> between President Barack Obama and the Islamic Republic of Iran, President Obama continues to urge the international community and American people to place trust in the Iranian regime regarding its nuclear ambitions and economic sanctions. It is crucial to examine some of the recent underlying human rights records in Iran, which have surprisingly not elicited any criticism from the liberal politicians, and have gone untold in the liberal media. This raises an intriguing issue, as President Obama has not mentioned or even condemned the Islamists in Tehran for this appalling human rights record.</p>
<p>Although the new Iranian government has tried to project a moderate picture, and although President Obama seems to believe in the charm offensive of this Islamist state, recent human rights reports show that there has been no improvement in the Iranian regime’s human rights records. In fact, the situation has deteriorated under the new Iranian government. In addition to the continued persecution of minorities and non-Muslims, the recent appalling human rights records have shown an upswing in stoning and public executions, reminiscent of the Islamic Middle Ages and Sharia laws.</p>
<p>For the first several months of the new Iranian president’s term, activists both inside and outside of Iran have formed campaigns aiming to end executions in Iran, and to put an end to stoning and public executions.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic of Iran is ranked second in the total number of executions, only after China. Though, if the proportion of the total population to the number of secret executions were considered, Iran would be ranked number one. According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, at least 529 people have been put to death in cities across the nation in 2013. Intriguingly, more than half of these executions, around 300, were carried out since President Rouhani assumed office in late August. Meaning that more than half of the executions were carried out in only the past four months.</p>
<p>It is also worth mentioning that most of the people who are executed, did not receive due process in court, and were mainly executed because of violations based on Islamic and Sharia law. Many of Iran’s condemned were accused of being a “Moharebeh” or “Mofsed fi Alard”, translated as meaning something near “waging war” against God and Islam.</p>
<p>Ironically, on Human Rights Day, the Head of Iran’s Judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani told high-ranking Judiciary officials, “The Judiciary will not take notice of irrational words and lies and will resolutely continue its work, because we believe that the highest human rights values are recognized in Islam.”</p>
<p>The stepped-up pace of public executions and stoning come as the new Iranian government is working to achieve its political objective of pushing for the West to take initiatives in lifting economic and political sanctions on Iran. President Obama has already taken steps to release billions of dollars, based on the recent executive order and nuclear deal.  Yet, there has not been any, or even slight, condemnation for this appalling and egregious human rights record.  The number of executions and stoning are on an upswing, as Iranian leaders are reaching another deal with the United States and the P5+1.</p>
<p>It is crucial to point out that the number of reported executions is official, and public— there are hundreds of others who are executed in secret locations, with some even executed collectively. For example, according to several credible reports, in Karaj’s Ghezel Hessar prison, eight prisoners were collectively executed on Thursday, December 18.</p>
<p>Recently, the European Parliament delegation returned from a six-day visit to Tehran, marking the first official visit to Iran in more than six years. The five-member delegation was led by the chairwoman of the European Parliament&#8217;s friendship delegation with Iran, an MEP for the Left party Cornelia Ernst, Austrian Social Democrats Isabelle Durant and Josef Weidenholzer, and Tarja Cronberg from Finnish Greens.  During their five-day visit, at least 38 death sentences were carried out, according to Iranian media sources. Many other executions in prisons were conducted in secret, with no news were released.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the crucial issue is that there has been no condemnation or criticism issued by any liberal politicians in the delegation or from mainstream media. Instead, the liberal media and politicians continue to praise the new Iranian government for its charm offensive and “moderate” policies.</p>
<p>Many opposition activists have pointed out that the current Obama administration is the weakest in US history when it comes to dealing with the threat of Islamists in Iran and their hegemonic agenda. The Iranian Islamists are attempting to impose their geopolitical hegemonic ambitions and agenda, both in the region and globally. They have recently been extremely successful with this, because of the deals with President Obama and the process of lifting sanctions and pressures. The Iranian regime has also been able to increase its lucrative oil sales as well.</p>
<p>On the contrary, while in Islamic Republic of Iran Tarja Cronberg told EuroNews that she was impressed that women are now serving in the Iranian Parliament. Though the leftist and democratic members who are impressed by this face failed to mention the fact that only nine out of 290 parliament members are women.</p>
<p>While the leftists and social democrats remain silent in Europe regarding Iran’s appalling human rights records of executions and stoning, and while President Obama is proceeding with removing pressures and sanctions on Iran, it remains unclear whether President Obama will issue any sort of statement condemning or criticizing this appalling record of stoning and public executions.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>45</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Muslim Who Stabbed Daughter Allowed to Stay in UK for Daughter&#8217;s Sake</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-who-stabbed-daughter-allowed-to-stay-in-uk-for-daughters-sake/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=muslim-who-stabbed-daughter-allowed-to-stay-in-uk-for-daughters-sake</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-who-stabbed-daughter-allowed-to-stay-in-uk-for-daughters-sake/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 04 Jan 2014 14:30:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214080</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Deportation would breach her right to family life ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/knife_in_hand.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-214081" alt="knife_in_hand" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/knife_in_hand.jpg" width="300" height="258" /></a></p>
<p>There are human rights. And there are EU human rights. <a href="http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2013/12/human-rights-gone-wild-bangladeshi.html">And never the twain shall meet</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A Bangladeshi immigrant who stabbed her baby with a kitchen knife has won the right to stay in Britain so that she can have contact with the child.</p>
<p>The Home Office sought to deport her when she completed her jail sentence, though by that time the family courts had given her the right to see her daughter under supervision. She had claimed that deportation would breach her right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Home Office’s appeal against the decision was unsuccessful.</p>
<p>The woman, who cannot be named, arrived in Britain in September 2007 after marrying her cousin in an arranged marriage the year before. She spoke no English and had never been to Britain before but joined him in a flat in Tower Hamlets, East London. Their daughter was born in June 2008.</p></blockquote>
<p>Let&#8217;s see. 1. Muslim 2. Arranged marriage 3. Tower Hamlets 4. Crime 5. Unable to deport. Yup. Everything on the checklist is checked.</p>
<p>At what point does a parent lose the right to a family life under the EU Convention? Seizing children from homeschooling families is fine. But a woman who stabs a baby has the right to maintain contact.</p>
<blockquote><p>Her husband left her alone with the child and came back to discover her stabbing the girl in the stomach. He grabbed the child and his wife was overpowered by his brother. The Old Bailey was told that the woman left a 1½in stab wound on the child’s body and that she would have died if the thrust had not caught one of her ribs.</p>
<p>The judge accepted that the woman was in “emotional turmoil” and jailed her for five years. In July 2011, while still in prison, she was granted access to her daughter by the family courts.</p></blockquote>
<p>And as long as the UK stays in the EU, this insanity will continue.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-who-stabbed-daughter-allowed-to-stay-in-uk-for-daughters-sake/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Left Against Zion</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/the-left-against-zion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-left-against-zion</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/the-left-against-zion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2013 05:49:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American Studies Association]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213605</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Can the advance of the anti-Israel movement be reversed? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/images.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-213610" alt="images" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/images.jpg" width="259" height="194" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-one-The-Left-against-Zion-335594">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>In the 1960s, the American Left embraced the anti-Vietnam War movement as its cri de coeur.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the Left’s foreign policy focus shifted to calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament by the US and its Western allies.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, supporting the Sandinista Communists’ takeover of Nicaragua became the catechism of the Left.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, the war on global capitalism – that is, the anti-globalization movement – captivated the passions of US Leftists from coast to coast.</p>
<p>In the 2000s, it was again, the anti-war movement.</p>
<p>This time the Left rioted and demonstrated against the war in Iraq.</p>
<p>And in this decade, the main foreign policy issue that galvanizes the passions and energies of the committed American Left is the movement to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist.</p>
<p>This week has been a big one for the anti-Israel movement. In the space of a few days, two quasi academic organizations – the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association – have launched boycotts against Israeli universities. Their boycotts follow a similar one announced in April by the Asian Studies Association.</p>
<p>These groups’ actions have not taken place in isolation. They are of a piece with ever-escalating acts of anti-Israel agitation in college campuses throughout the United States.</p>
<p>Between the growth of Israel Apartheid Day (or Week, or Month) from a fringe exercise on isolated campuses to a staple of the academic calendar in universities throughout the US and Canada, and the rise of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to wage economic war against the Jewish state, anti-Israel activism has become the focal point of Leftist foreign policy activism in the US and throughout the Western world.</p>
<p>Every week brings a wealth of stories about new cases of aggressive anti-Israel activism. At the University of Michigan last week, thousands of students were sent fake eviction notices from the university’s housing office. A pro-Palestinian group distributed them in dorms across campus to disseminate the blood libel that Israel is carrying out mass expulsions of Palestinians.</p>
<p>At Swarthmore College, leftist anti-Israel Jewish students who control Hillel are insisting on using Hillel’s good offices to disseminate and legitimate anti-Israel slanders.</p>
<p>And the Left’s doctrinaire insistence that Israel is the root of all evil is not limited to campuses.</p>
<p>At New York’s 92nd Street Y, Commentary editor John Podhoretz was booed and hissed by the audience for trying to explain why the ASA’s just-announced boycott of Israel was an obscene act of bigotry.</p>
<p>Many commentators have rightly pointed out that the ASA and the NAISA are fringe groups.</p>
<p>They represent doctorate holders who chose to devote their careers to disciplines predicated not on scholarship, but on political activism cloaked in academic regalia whose goal is to discredit American power. The ASA has only 5,000 members, and only 1,200 of them voted on the Israel- boycott resolution. The NAISA has even fewer members.</p>
<p>It would be wrong, however, to use the paltry number of these fringe groups’ members as means to dismiss the phenomenon that they represent. They are very much in line with the general drift of the Left.</p>
<p>Rejecting Israel’s right to exist has become part of the Left’s dogma. It is a part of the catechism.</p>
<p>Holding a negative view of the Jewish state is a condition for membership in the ideological camp. It is an article of faith, not fact.</p>
<p>Consider the background of the president of the ASA. Curtis Marez is an associate professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, San Diego. His area of expertise is Chicano Film and Media Studies.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know anything about Israel. He just knows that he’s a Leftist. And today, Leftists demonize Israel. Their actions have nothing to do with anything Israel does or has ever done. They have nothing to do with human rights. Hating Israel, slandering Israel and supporting the destruction of Israel are just things that good Leftists do.</p>
<p>And Marez was not out of step with his fellow Leftists who rule the roost at UCSD. This past March the student council passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies that do business with Israel.</p>
<p>Why? Because hating Israel is what Leftists do.</p>
<p>The Left’s crusade against the Jewish state began in earnest in late 2000. The Palestinians’ decision to reject statehood and renew their terror war against Israel ushered in the move by anti-Israel forces on the Left to take over the movement. And as they have risen, they have managed to silence and discredit previously fully accredited members of the ideological Left for the heresy of supporting Israel.</p>
<p>This week, Harvard Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz retired after 50 years on the law faculty. His exit, the same week as the ASA and the NAISA announced their boycotts of Israeli universities, symbolized the marginalization of the pro-Israel Left that Dershowitz represented.</p>
<p>For years, Dershowitz has been a non-entity in leftist circles. His place at the table was usurped by anti-Israel Jews like Peter Beinart. And now Beinart is finding himself increasingly challenged by anti-Semitic Jews like Max Blumenthal.</p>
<p>The progression is unmistakable.</p>
<p>The question is, is it irreversible? Must supporters of Israel choose between their support for Israel and their affinity for the Left? Certainly it is true that the more the issue of support for Israel splits along ideological and partisan lines, the more reasonable it is for supporters of Israel to move to the ideological camp and the party that supports Israel, and away from the ones that do not support Israel.</p>
<p>The average voter is not in a position to change the positions of his party or the dogma of his ideological camp. He can take it or leave it. With rejection of Israel now firmly entrenched in the Left’s dogma, and with the Left firmly in control of the Democratic Party under President Barack Obama’s leadership, for those who care about Israel, the Republican Party is a more natural fit.</p>
<p>So, too, the ideological Right is far more congenial to the Jewish state than the Left.</p>
<p>While the most sensible place for supporters of Israel to be today is on the political Right, it is also true that it is neither smart nor responsible to abandon the Left completely. Jews should be able to feel comfortable as Jews, and as supporters of Israel everywhere. Ideological camps that castigate Jews for their pride in the accomplishments of the Jewish state, and for their support and concern for its survival and prosperity, are camps in desperate need of fixing.</p>
<p>But we should not fool ourselves. Challenging the likes of Marez, or the Swarthmore students, or Max Blumenthal or Peter Beinart to a reasoned debate is an exercise in futility. They do not care about human rights. They do not care that Israel is the only human rights-respecting democracy in the Middle East. They do not care about the pathological nature of Palestinian society. They do not care about the Jewish people’s indigenous rights and international legal rights to sovereignty not only over Tel Aviv and Haifa, but over Hebron and Ramallah.</p>
<p>Being hypocrites doesn’t bother them either.</p>
<p>You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the civilian victims of the Syrian civil war, or the gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia and the absence of religious freedom throughout the Muslim world. But they don’t care. They aren’t trying to make the world a better place.</p>
<p>Facts cannot compete with their faith. Reason has no place in their closed intellectual universe.</p>
<p>To accept reason and facts would be an act of heresy.</p>
<p>Marez may be a hypocrite, and even a servant of evil. But he is no heretic.</p>
<p>The only real way to mitigate the hard Left’s devotion to Israel’s destruction is by changing the power balance on the Left. For the past decade, donors like George Soros have been open in their commitment to elect Democrats who oppose the US’s alliance with Israel. A decade ago, Soros and fellow Jewish American billionaire Peter Lewis funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Moveon.org. Moveon.org became a clearinghouse for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messages that became the stock in trade of the ideological Left, and of Democratic candidates in need of campaign funding.</p>
<p>It was due to then-Democratic senator Joe Lieberman’s refusal to get on the Soros- and Lewis-funded anti-Israel bandwagon in the 2004 elections, that they turned Moveon.org against Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary for his seat in the Senate. His Democratic challenger, Ned Lamont, who won the primary, ran a campaign laced with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda.</p>
<p>There are Democratic funders, like Penny Pritzker, Lester Crown and Haim Saban, who support Israel. If they were so inclined, they could use their considerable funds to change the power equation in the Democratic Party. They could cultivate and support pro-Israel Democratic candidates. They could take the Democratic Party back.</p>
<p>This week ended with Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer finally breaking his silence on Obama’s Iran deal and joining forces with his fellow Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez and Republican Sen. Mark Kirk to defy Obama on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Given Obama’s floundering popularity, it is possible that Schumer’s move will open the door for a change in the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>In truth, there is no reason for the Democratic Party to remain in place. It isn’t ordained that the Democrats must cleave to the hard Left.</p>
<p>The rejection of Israel is not a natural component of leftist dogma. It’s just that for the past decade, the smart money and the rising power on the Left has been with those who oppose Israel’s existence as a strong, independent Jewish state.</p>
<p>While the ASA and its comrades are on the fringes of academia, they are not fringe voices on the Left. The Left has embraced the cause of Israel’s destruction. And its financial power has made it difficult for pro-Israel Democrats to act on their convictions, and those of their voters.</p>
<p>The combination of an exodus of supporters of Israel – Jews and non-Jews alike – from the Left and from the Democratic Party on the one hand, and generous funding for pro-Israel Democratic candidates on the other, can change the equation.</p>
<p>America lost the Vietnam War. The Sandinistas are back in change in Nicaragua. But if people are willing to stand up now and be counted, America need not harm Israel.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/the-left-against-zion/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>74</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Muslim Men Beat Wives, Human Rights Groups Blame Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-men-beat-wives-human-rights-groups-blame-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=muslim-men-beat-wives-human-rights-groups-blame-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-men-beat-wives-human-rights-groups-blame-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Dec 2013 23:56:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim Feminism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213179</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Won't someone please stop Israel from forcing Muslim men to beat their wives?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/muslim-feminism.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-189342" alt="muslim feminism" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/muslim-feminism.png" width="403" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>They  can&#8217;t blame the Muslim men. Obviously.<a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.fi/2013/12/european-ngo-blames-israel-for-gaza-men.html#.UqlhifQW1Cg"> That would be passing judgement on their </a> culture. <a href="http://tundratabloids.com/2013/12/european-ngo-euro-mid-observor-for-human-rights-blames-israel-for-islamic-institutionalized-spouse-abuse.html">Blaming Israel though is always the right</a> answer.</p>
<blockquote><p>Frequent Israeli military attacks have left a large number of women in Gaza on their own to raise their families. Pal-Think for Strategic Studies estimates that in just the aftermath of the 23-day Israeli military operation called “Cast Lead” in 2008-2009, more than 800 new widows were created. These widows suffer from insecure incomes and constant feelings of threat and insecurity, high levels of anxiety and concern about lack of access to education and other services for them and their children.</p></blockquote>
<p>Wait&#8230; but why did the evil Zionist war machine kill men rather than women? Is it possible that these tragic victims were really terrorists?</p>
<p>And even when the terrorists survive, they start divorcing their wives. Because Israel.</p>
<blockquote><p>A result of these growing tensions is a rise in the divorce rate (perceived as increasing by 24.6 per cent of the interviewees)</p></blockquote>
<p>&#8220;Aisha, I am divorcing you.&#8221; &#8220;But why, Mohammed?&#8221; &#8220;Because of Zionism.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8230;and violence against women and girls. More than half (58.9 per cent) of the women in the study said they believe domestic violence is a growing problem in Gaza, and an even larger proportion (61.3 per cent) think their children are more at risk.</p></blockquote>
<p>Gaza is run by Hamas, which hews to a more &#8220;traditional&#8221; Islamic view of the female sex. That may have something to do with it. But no, it&#8217;s obviously Israel.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s unknown why Muslim men in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia beat their wives. But it&#8217;s also probably Israel&#8217;s fault.</p>
<blockquote><p>An earlier survey (2011) by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics corroborated the women’s concerns. It found that approximately 37 per cent of Palestinian women in both the West Bank and Gaza had experienced physical or sexual abuse by their husbands in the previous 12 months. A larger 51 per cent in Gaza reported violence within the household directed against at least one member (including children).</p></blockquote>
<p>Fortunately there&#8217;s an answer.</p>
<blockquote><p>The only answer to the suffering of the people of Gaza, including its neglected women, is for the international community to hold Israel accountable&#8230;</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s right.</p>
<p>The only way to make Muslim men stop beating their wives is by holding Israel accountable.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/euromid.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-213180" alt="euromid" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/euromid.png" width="320" height="259" /></a></p>
<p>Won&#8217;t someone please stop Israel from forcing Muslim men to beat their wives?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-men-beat-wives-human-rights-groups-blame-israel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Axis of Evil: Alive and Well</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/the-axis-of-evil-alive-and-well/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-axis-of-evil-alive-and-well</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/the-axis-of-evil-alive-and-well/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Aug 2013 04:39:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Castro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Che Guevara]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200815</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And 90 miles from the U.S. homeland. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/imagesn.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-200817" alt="imagesn" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/imagesn.jpg" width="261" height="193" /></a>“Foreign reporters—preferably American&#8211;were much more valuable to us at that time (1957-59) than any military victory. Much more valuable than recruits for our guerrilla force, </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Longest-Romance-Mainstream-Castro/dp/1594036675"><i>were American media recruits to export our propaganda.&#8221;</i></a> (Che Guevara 1959)</p>
<p><i>“Reporters in Havana are either insensitive to the pain of the opposition &#8216;or in clear complicity&#8217; with the government.”</i> (Cuban torture-victim Jorge Luis García Pérez known as <i>Antunez </i>in the <em>Miami Herald</em> 8/7/2013)</p>
<p>Note the time span between the quotes above. Few propaganda recruitment drives and PR campaigns in modern history have been as phenomenally successful or as enduring as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s.</p>
<p>During the past few weeks, for instance, the Castro-regime was caught red-handed shipping a huge tanker-load of illegal weapons (including missile equipment) to North Korea, a fleet of Russian warships visited Havana, Cuba’s vice president visited Iran to “expand ties,” Cuba’s vice foreign minister visited Pyongyang to foment &#8220;closer cooperation,&#8221; and Amnesty International decried the wave of terror against Cuban dissidents, naming five of them as “prisoners of conscience.”</p>
<p>But a quick Cuba news scan will show that the top Cuba item reported in the U.S. during this period was about a paddleboarder who paddled from Havana to Key West to “promote peace, love and friendship between the peoples of Cuba and of U.S.” This week, birthday greetings to Fidel Castro on his 87<sup>th</sup> filled  the media bucket.</p>
<p>Castro jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror, murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six, and came closest of anyone in history to starting a worldwide nuclear war. In the above process he converted a nation with a higher per capita income than half of Europe and a huge influx of immigrants into one that repels Haitians and boasts the highest suicide rate in the western hemisphere.</p>
<p>Who would guess any of this from reading the mainstream media?</p>
<p>In 1990 Castro’s KGB-trained secret police arrested Black Cuban dissident <i>Antunez</i> (quoted above) and Castro’s kangaroo courts sentence him to 17 years in prison. His crime was shouting anti-Castro slogans in public. Black Cuban doctor Oscar Biscet was sentenced to 25 years in Castro’s torture chambers for the crime of reciting the works of Martin Luther King and the UN Declaration of Human Rights in a Cuban public square. This “crime” was greatly compounded by Dr. Biscet’s specifically denouncing the Castro regime’s policy of forced abortions (which account for those “low infant-mortality” figures, much-trumpeted by such as Michael Moore and the Congressional Black Caucus.)</p>
<p>Many Cuban blacks suffered longer incarceration in Castro&#8217;s dungeons and torture chambers than Nelson Mandela suffered in South Africa&#8217;s (relatively) comfortable prisons. In fact, these Cubans qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history. Eusebio Penalver, Ignacio Cuesta Valle, Antonio Lopez Munoz, Ricardo Valdes Cancio, and many other Cuban blacks suffered almost thirty years in Castro&#8217;s prisons. These men (and many women too, by the way, black and white) suffered their tortures 90 miles from U.S. shores.</p>
<p>But you’ve never heard of them, right? And yet from CNN to NBC, from Reuters to the AP, from ABC to NPR, Castro’s fiefdom hosts an abundance of U.S. and international press bureaus and crawls with their intrepid “investigative reporters.”</p>
<p>According to anti-Apartheid activists a grand total of 3,000 political prisoners passed through South Africa’s Robben Island prison in roughly 30 years under the Apartheid regime. Usually about a thousand were held. These were out of a South African population of 40 million.</p>
<p>According to Freedom House, a grand total of 500,000 political prisoners have passed through Castro’s various prisons and forced labor camps. At one time in 1961, some 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses. This is out of a Cuban population in 1960 of 6.4 million. A quick punch of a calculator will easily reveal the grotesque disparity in repression between the two regimes. A quick scan of the media will reveal the grotesque disparity of condemnation applied to the (relative) molehill instead of to the mountain.</p>
<p>In 1964, the government of Apartheid South Africa sentenced Nelson Mandela to 30 years in prison. Mandela’s trial was conducted by an independent judiciary and witnessed by scores of international observers. The charges against  Mandela included: &#8220;The preparation, manufacture and use of explosives, including 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tons of aluminum powder and a ton of black powder. 193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The [Mandela] trial has been properly conducted,&#8221; wrote correspondent for the <em>London Observer</em> Anthony Sampson (who later wrote Mandela&#8217;s <i>authorized</i> biography). &#8220;The judge, Mr Justice Quartus de Wet, has been scrupulously fair.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>Antunez</em>, Biscet and thousands of other Cubans were condemned by a judicial system  founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky during Lenin’s Red Terror, perfected by Andrei Vishinsky during Stalin’s Great Terror and transplanted to Cuba in 1959 by their “Latino” disciples. “Judicial evidence is an archaic Bourgeios detail,” Che Guevara stressed to his prosecutors. “When in doubt &#8212; execute.”</p>
<p>“Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals,” Fidel Castro explained to <em>Time </em>magazine in February 1959. “So we sentence them based on moral conviction.”</p>
<p>These “executions” (murders, technically) would surpass Hitler’s during the Night of the Long Knives and the rate of jailings would exceed Stalin’s during his Great Terror, to say nothing of South Africa’s during Apartheid.</p>
<p>And  yet the “injustice” against Nelson Mandela is a media cause célèbre. But most of you have never heard of <i>Antunez</i>, Biscet or any of those hundreds of other black Cuban political prisoners. Why?</p>
<p>The quotes heading this article <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Longest-Romance-Mainstream-Castro/dp/1594036675">probably explain it best.</a></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/the-axis-of-evil-alive-and-well/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>UN Honors Human Rights Abuser Che Guevara</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/un-honors-warmonger-book-burner-mass-murderer-che-guevara/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=un-honors-warmonger-book-burner-mass-murderer-che-guevara</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/un-honors-warmonger-book-burner-mass-murderer-che-guevara/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jul 2013 04:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Che Guevara]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Havana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[honor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198120</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whitewashing the bloody legacy of a totalitarian killer. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/che-guevara-345.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198160" alt="che guevara 345" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/che-guevara-345-450x317.jpg" width="270" height="190" /></a>At a ceremony in Havana last week UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) honored Che Guevara by enshrining his writings in its hallowed “Memory of the World Register.”  The ceremony included several members of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s family</span></b></p>
<p>“UNESCO’s work is part of our support for freedom of expression as an inalienable human right set down in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” declares the UN’s mission statement.</p>
<p>But not far from where this UNESCO/Guevara ceremony took place Cubans were being starved and beaten in pestiferous torture chambers for the crime of quoting the UN Declaration of Human Rights in public.</p>
<p>“UNESCO is known as the intellectual agency of the United Nations,&#8221; which stands for “Protecting freedom of expression: an essential condition for democracy, development and human dignity,” reads the UN charter.</p>
<p>But not far from where this UNESCO/Guevara ceremony took place, the regime being honored by UNESCO burned hundreds of books and documents in a ceremony slightly less spectacular than the one hosted by Joseph Goebbels in Berlin’s Opera Square in 1933. The bonfire was accompanied by the beating and jailing of the owners and purveyors of these works. The Castroite bonfire was fueled by such works as Orwell’s Animal Farm, the works of Martin Luther King and the UN Declaration of Human Rights<i>.</i></p>
<p>“I plead with Fidel Castro and his government to immediately take their hands off [Cuba’s] independent librarians,” entreated none other than Ray Bradbury at the time. “And to release all those librarians in prison, and to send them back into Cuban culture to inform the people.”</p>
<p>Instead of heeding Bradbury, for the crime of stocking some of the world’s bestselling books (along with the UN Declaration of Human Rights<i>), </i>the Stalinist regime honored by UNESCO condemned the Cuban librarians to prison terms similar to the one a South African judge handed Nelson Mandela for planting bombs in public places. “As to the disposition of the books, magazines and pamphlets they are to be destroyed by means of incineration because they lack usefulness,” ruled the Castroite “judge.”</p>
<p>Just last week, by the way, the UN honored Nelson Mandela with an “International Nelson Mandela Day.”  The longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history (all Cubans jailed and tortured by the regime honored by the UN last week) have never received so much as a nod or wink from the United Nations.</p>
<p>“As the United Nations agency with a specific mandate to promote &#8216;the free flow of ideas by word and image&#8217;, UNESCO works to foster free, independent and pluralistic media in print, broadcast and online. This foundation is why UNESCO today promotes policies for press freedom and the safety of journalists,” reads the UNESCO charter.</p>
<p>But the regime honored by UNESCO last week also holds the honor, according to the Paris-based “Reporters Without Borders,&#8221; of jailing and torturing the most journalists per capita on earth. Stunningly, the total number of journalists jailed by the nation honored by UNESCO (pop. 11 million) is only slightly behind that of China (pop. 1.4 <i>billion</i>).</p>
<p>“Our purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom,” declares the UNESCO charter.</p>
<p>“We reject any peaceful approach!&#8221; declared the man they honored last week in Havana.</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Violence is inevitable! To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! If the nuclear missiles had remained [in Cuba] we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!</i></p></blockquote>
<p>“My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm!” <a href="http://www.hfontova.com/che.html">This passage, by the way</a>, comes from the very works enshrined and honored by UNESCO last week.</p>
<p>The “acrid odor of gunpowder and blood” rarely reached Che Guevara’s nostril from actual combat. It always came from the close-range murder of bound, gagged or blindfolded men (and boys).</p>
<p>Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Che&#8217;s soldiers dragged him from his cell in La Cabana, jerked his head back to gag him, and started dragging him to the stake. Little &#8220;Rigo&#8221; pleaded his innocence to the very bloody end. But his pleas were garbled and difficult to understand. His struggles while being gagged and bound to the stake were also awkward. The boy had been a janitor in a Havana high school and was mentally retarded. His single mother had pleaded his case with hysterical sobs. She had begged, beseeched and finally proven to his &#8220;prosecutors&#8221; that it was a case of mistaken identity. Her only son, a boy in such a condition, c<i>ouldn&#8217;t possibly</i> have been &#8220;a CIA agent planting bombs.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;<i>FUEGO</i>!&#8221; and the firing squad volley shattered Rigo&#8217;s little bent body as he moaned and struggled awkwardly against his bounds, blindfold and gag.</p>
<p>“Certainly we execute!” boasted the man honored by UNESCO last week. “And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary!” Those executions (<i>murders</i>, actually; execution implies a judicial process) had reached about 16,000 by the time of Che Guevara’s statement, the equivalent, given the relative populations, of almost a million executions in the U.S. (This figure comes from “The Black Book of Communism,” by the way, written by French scholars and published in English by Harvard University Press, neither an outpost of “right-wing Cuban exiles.”)</p>
<p>Quite fittingly, Che’s bloodthirsty boast was made on Dec. 9, 1964 while addressing the <a href="http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-longest-romance-the-mainstream-media-and-fidel-castro/">hallowed halls of the United Nations.</a></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/un-honors-warmonger-book-burner-mass-murderer-che-guevara/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Leftist&#8217;s Harsh Words for the Unholy Alliance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/a-leftists-harsh-words-for-the-unholy-alliance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-leftists-harsh-words-for-the-unholy-alliance</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/a-leftists-harsh-words-for-the-unholy-alliance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jul 2013 04:46:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamofascist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meredith Tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=195918</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A surprising denouncement of liberals' embrace of Islamist human rights abusers. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/product_thumbnail.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-195966" alt="product_thumbnail" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/product_thumbnail.jpg" width="179" height="256" /></a>It isn&#8217;t often that a leftist thought leader calls out her comrades for aligning themselves with the Islamist enemies of the United States but that&#8217;s exactly what Meredith Tax does in her new book.</p>
<p>In <i>Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights</i>, published recently by the Centre for Secular Space, Tax claims that a fierce struggle is underway worldwide between Islamic fundamentalists and secularists who favor the separation of religion and the state. (Tax is U.S. Director and head writer for the Centre, which she describes as a London-based think tank &#8220;formed to oppose fundamentalism, strengthen secular voices, and promote universality in human rights.&#8221;)</p>
<p>If this is true, it is a fairly well-guarded secret. The secularists haven&#8217;t won many battles in recent decades. Church-state separation remains as strange and foreign a concept in the Islamic world as shareholder dividends might be in Stalinist North Korea.</p>
<p>Even the military ouster of Mohammed Morsi on July 3 isn&#8217;t necessarily a sign that Egyptians are embracing secular democracy. Egyptians didn&#8217;t like Morsi for a host of reasons but that doesn&#8217;t mean they won&#8217;t remain largely supportive of Islamization and the imposition of Shariah law in their country. Islamists won&#8217;t sit still while Egypt slips from their grasp.</p>
<p>These secularists that Tax writes of are those unicorns that in the West the mainstream media call moderate Muslims. We keep hearing about these people, and occasionally a few surface for TV cameras, but in most of the <i>Ummah</i> they have no real political power. Islam is not known for embracing pluralism. There may be some secularists in the Islamic world who struggle heroically for freedoms Americans and Europeans taken for granted, and we may admire their bravery and perseverance, but unfortunately in the end they count for little.</p>
<p>As the totalitarian Islamic juggernaut sweeps across Africa and Islamism becomes even more solidly entrenched in the Middle East (thanks in part to Obama administration policies), those who endorse Western-style notions of human rights are increasingly marginalized, terrorized, and liquidated by the powers that be.</p>
<p><b>Criticizing the Left</b></p>
<p>Tax chastens her fellow leftists for making common cause with Islamists out of hatred of the U.S. Over the last decade &#8220;some groups on the far Left have allied with conservative Muslim organizations that stand for religious discrimination, advocate death for those they consider apostates, oppose gay rights, subordinate women, and seek to impose their views on others through violence,&#8221; Tax writes.</p>
<p>This is happening &#8220;in the current climate of increasing xenophobia, discrimination and violent attacks upon Muslims in both Europe and North America,&#8221; she writes.</p>
<blockquote><p>We know that Islam is often maligned and misrepresented in the North. We agree that jihadis have the same rights to due process of law as anybody else, and should be defended against violations like rendition and torture. But that should not mean giving their ideas political support, as happens when human rights organizations endorse &#8220;defensive jihad&#8221; or antiwar coalitions allow sex-segregated seating at their meetings.</p></blockquote>
<p>Actually, Islam isn&#8217;t maligned and misrepresented all that much in the so-called Global North. In the U.S., U.K., Canada and elsewhere the media-academic-entertainment complex largely sanitizes Islam, presenting it as a benign, misunderstood religion. Those who document the medieval brutality of Shariah law, the oppression of women, and the persecution of homosexuals under Islam are reflexively denounced as bigots.</p>
<p>To her credit, Tax acknowledges that hate crimes committed against Jews in the U.S. outnumber those committed against Muslims &#8212; by a ratio of 5 to 1 according to the FBI&#8217;s 2010 survey of hate crimes. &#8220;In short, the picture is complicated, and while persecution of Muslims must be fought, it should not blind us to continuing institutionalized racism against other groups.&#8221;</p>
<p>And while Tax shares many of the beliefs of the left-wing activists she criticizes, joining in their tedious America-bashing, she at least has the integrity to acknowledge that in their ill-conceived effort to promote human rights, American and British advocacy groups &#8220;have gone overboard&#8221; by embracing Islamism. This support for Islamic extremism &#8220;has spread from the far Left to feminists, the human rights movement, and progressive donors,&#8221; and has hurt the Left by undermining &#8220;struggles for secular democracy in the Global South.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tax tries to convince her fellow left-wingers to recognize the danger radical Islam poses and urges them to stop reflexively siding with brutal Islamist movements and regimes.</p>
<p>Ultimately, she concludes, it is suicidal to align with Islamists. Even if Muslim militants  &#8220;were a reliable foe of US imperialism, &#8216;The enemy of my enemy is my friend&#8217; is a very poor strategy for left wing survival,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;Wherever Islamists have gained power, they have wiped out the left &#8212; see Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Sudan, and, of course, Afghanistan.&#8221;</p>
<p>Leftists have to stop accepting the premises of the Islamist argument, Tax argues. They have to stop downplaying the crimes of Islamists as a way of fighting racism in the so-called Global North.</p>
<p>The Left, in Tax&#8217;s view, has to reach out to pro-democracy activists, labor, religious and sexual minorities, and feminists in the Global South who are fighting &#8220;neo-liberalism&#8221; and religious fundamentalism.</p>
<p><b>Smearing the Right</b></p>
<p>In <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.meredithtax.org/taxonomyblog/muslim-right-and-anglo-american-left-love-dare-not-speak-its-name">her own words</a></span>, <i>Double Bind</i> is about what&#8217;s wrong with the Left&#8217;s approach to Islamic terrorism. It is about &#8220;what happens when the Left takes up the language and framing of the Muslim Right.&#8221;</p>
<p>But Tax&#8217;s own taxonomy is troubling.</p>
<p>She defines the Muslim Right as &#8220;a range of transnational political movements that mobilize identity politics towards the goal of a theocratic state.&#8221; This means that in Tax&#8217;s world, the Left is always on the side of the angels. Those who favor dictatorship, the death penalty for homosexuality, and the brutal subjugation of women &#8212; including forced female genital mutilation &#8212; are right-wingers.</p>
<p>In other words, &#8220;Muslim Right&#8221; is a synonym for Islamism.</p>
<p>She argues that there are three distinct factions &#8212; all of which are political Islamists &#8212; within the Muslim Right.</p>
<p>First, are so-called moderate Islamists who aspire to achieve their goals incrementally through the ballot box. Second, are extremist Salafi parties and groups that put up candidates for office &#8220;but also try to enforce some version of Sharia law through street violence.&#8221; Third, are what she considers the smallest faction, the militant Salafi-Jihadis &#8220;whose propaganda endorses military means and who practice violence against civilians.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ultimately, all three factions have the same objective. Their goal &#8220;is a state founded upon some version of Sharia law that systematically discriminates against women along with sexual and religious minorities.&#8221;</p>
<p>How convenient. In the U.S., United Kingdom, and many Western nations, the left-to-right political spectrum is of some use in discerning the social, economic, and political goals of those involved in politics, but in the world of Islam it is of little use.</p>
<p>Even if we look to the most basic, broad definition of left versus right, that definition doesn&#8217;t help us to understand the Muslim world. Harking back to the French Revolutionary origins of the left-right continuum, in the broadest sense &#8220;left&#8221; means supporting change, while &#8220;right&#8221; means supporting the status quo (or in some cases the status quo ante).</p>
<p>The still-authoritative 14th century work of Islamic jurisprudence, <i>Reliance of the Traveller</i>, for example, spells out what food is acceptable (<i>Halal</i>) for Muslims and how it should be prepared. If you favor the imposition of such rules on society are you taking a right-wing or a left-wing position? How would one even begin to analyze the rule in terms of the political spectrum and Western political philosophy? And are those trying to dramatically change Egypt by turning it into a religious theocracy like Iran really right-wingers in the way <i>right-wing</i> is used in the U.S. and the U.K.?</p>
<p>Tax is trying to force the world to fit into her simplistic socialist worldview and in the process smearing all on the right side of the political spectrum. Liberals and progressives in America do it all the time, absurdly lumping U.S. conservatives in with the Taliban.</p>
<p>Of course, in America it is only the Right that has stood up to Islamism and creeping Shariah. If a leftist like Michael Moore, whose views aren&#8217;t dramatically different from Tax&#8217;s, had been president on 9/11, there would have been no Global War on Terror. We would have suffered through an endless series of useless &#8220;police&#8221; actions.</p>
<p>In America it is only the Right that has carried on the battle for the rights of women and gays in Islamic countries. The Left, on the other hand, has largely been AWOL.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, boiled down to its essence, left-wing is <i>good</i> and right-wing is <i>bad</i>, according to Tax.</p>
<p>And Tax believes that leftists &#8220;have to oppose all varieties of right wing politics&#8221; and &#8220;must stand up to demagogues who characterize every Muslim as a potential terrorist and try to whip up violence against civilians.&#8221; She also claims &#8220;we have a problem with white fascists in the US or UK.&#8221; She doesn&#8217;t name any of these alleged demagogues or fascists in the United States, probably because there aren&#8217;t any of note.</p>
<p>The Left, &#8220;at least in principle,&#8221; has historically stood for &#8220;separation between religion and the state; social equality; an end to discrimination against women and minorities; economic justice; opposition to imperialist and racist wars.&#8221;</p>
<p>The 100 million or so human beings murdered by left-wing totalitarians in the 20th century apparently don&#8217;t figure in Tax&#8217;s calculus. Nor do the religious victims of the Red Terror during the Spanish Civil War in which leftists murdered Roman Catholic priests. The examples are endless.</p>
<p>Yet Tax insists on imposing this Western conceptual frame on Islamic countries, even though it doesn&#8217;t work well.</p>
<p>Islam is not merely a religion, but a complex, exhaustive code of conduct that prescribes rules covering everything from praying in the presence of food to acceptable clothing to sex to burial practices. Unlike some of the other major world religions, it is not introspective and does not lend itself to debate.</p>
<p>It is believed that the Koran (or Quran) is the verbatim word of Allah revealed to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel over more than two decades in the early 7th century A.D. Because all of it was handed down by the Supreme Being, the Koran must be literally true. In Islam edicts are issued by scholars on high, and obedience, to extents that vary in the various Muslim countries, are enforced. It is no coincidence that Islam means &#8220;submission&#8221; or &#8220;surrender.&#8221;</p>
<p>There is also no such thing as separation of religion and state in Islam. Trying to convince Muslims to embrace separation of mosque and state first requires teaching Muslims that mosque and state are in fact not the same thing and that separating them is actually possible.</p>
<p>Tax also doesn&#8217;t seem to know what the word <i>neoconservative</i> means, as she uses it in novel ways. She uncritically quotes a New York taxi worker organizer who describes al-Qaeda, Lashkar e Taiba, al Shabaab, and Jaish e Mohammed as &#8220;Islamic neoconservative insurgencies.&#8221;</p>
<p>How Islamists, who want to exterminate all Jews, could be considered neoconservative is too absurd to contemplate. <i>Neoconservative</i> is often used as an epithet by leftists to mean &#8220;Jewish right-winger&#8221; or to refer to a supporter of Israel.</p>
<p>Perhaps she is using the term as shorthand for &#8220;something I don&#8217;t like&#8221; &#8212; the way academics, even leftists, are branded as right-wing if they fail to observe politically correct pieties.</p>
<p><b>&#8220;Islamophobia&#8221;</b></p>
<p>Also to her credit, Tax acknowledges that Islamists and their defenders smear their critics in an attempt to silence them. She notes that they hurl the word &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; as a means of shutting down debate about the Muslim religion, whose leaders fairly uniformly reject democratic culture and the idea of separation of church and state.</p>
<p>Tax separates the two meanings behind the word.</p>
<p>In popular speech and the media, it is used to mean &#8220;discrimination, prejudice, hatred of, and violent attacks upon Muslims in the West.&#8221; Sometimes it also includes &#8220;[b]lanket police surveillance&#8221; of Muslims.</p>
<p>As &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; is used by Islamists, the term includes &#8220;any criticism of their ideas and practices, or Muslim texts. It also includes invasions of &#8216;Muslim lands,&#8217; which are attributed to a hatred of Islam rather than to geopolitical reasons like the desire to control territory, trade or oil.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tax criticizes Michael Ratner, the anti-American Marxist who serves as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a notorious public interest law firm devoted to undermining America&#8217;s institutions. She calls him out for buying into Islamophobia.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am convinced that Gitmo and other places like Gitmo only exist because its detainees are Muslims,&#8221; Ratner said in 2012. &#8220;I can&#8217;t imagine a Christian Gitmo. I cannot imagine a Jewish Guantanamo. It exists because of Islamophobia.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tax disagrees. Uncritically adopting the concept of Islamophobia means accepting the false premises of the Muslim Right, thus granting it a propaganda victory. While the progressive movement should combat racism and prejudice against Muslims, it should not use a term that &#8220;does more to confuse the issues than clarify them&#8221; and that is used in &#8220;efforts to criminalize free expression and dissent.&#8221;</p>
<p>Incidentally, there is some disagreement over the origins of the term &#8220;Islamophobia<i>.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Tax states that British sources attribute the &#8220;popularization&#8221; of the expression to a 1997 report by the London-based Runnymede Trust, a left-wing think tank, while French sources &#8220;attribute it to Ayatollah Khomeini, who said Iranian women who rejected the veil were &#8216;Islamophobic.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>French social critic Pascal Bruckner <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.signandsight.com/features/2123.html">claims</a></span> Iranian fundamentalists invented the term in the late 1970s &#8220;in analogy to &#8216;xenophobia,&#8217;&#8221; and &#8220;to silence those Muslims who question the Koran and who demand equality of the sexes.&#8221;</p>
<p>The purpose of the word &#8220;was to declare Islam inviolate,&#8221; Bruckner says. &#8220;Whoever crosses this border is deemed a racist. This term, which is worthy of totalitarian propaganda, is deliberately unspecific about whether it refers to a religion, a belief system or its faithful adherents around the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=777">DiscoverTheNetworks</a></span>, &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; was coined in the early 1990s by the International Institute for Islamic Thought, a Virginia-based front group for the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<blockquote><p>Former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad &#8212; who was with that organization when the word was formally created, and who has since rejected IIIT&#8217;s ideology &#8212; now reveals the original intent behind the concept of Islamophobia: &#8220;This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.&#8221; In short, in its very origins, &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; was a term designed as a weapon to advance a totalitarian cause by stigmatizing critics and silencing them.</p></blockquote>
<p>Wherever it comes from, Tax counsels against using the word &#8220;when describing discriminatory acts or hate speech&#8221; because doing so plays into the hands of Islamists.</p>
<p><b>Glenn Greenwald and Other Useful Idiots</b></p>
<p>Tax <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/meredith-tax/double-bind-tied-up-in-knots-on-left">criticizes</a></span> American writer Glenn Greenwald, the journalist now best known for his ties to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, for functioning as a useful idiot. Like the Islamists, Greenwald sees the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mali as anti-Muslim actions. He has written:</p>
<blockquote><p>As French war planes bomb Mali, there is one simple statistic that provides the key context: this west African nation of 15 million people is the eighth country in which western powers &#8211; over the last four years alone &#8211; have bombed and killed Muslims &#8211; after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and the Philippines (that does not count the numerous lethal tyrannies propped up by the west in that region). For obvious reasons, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism.</p></blockquote>
<p>By viewing those wars through the lens of religion, Tax argues that Greenwald is ignoring the fact that most of those conflicts are Muslims fighting other Muslims.</p>
<p>&#8220;Like people who see Taliban activity in Pakistan largely as a reaction against drones,&#8221; Tax writes, &#8220;leftists who frame the issues in Mali solely in terms of Western imperialism deny the agency of the people living there, who have been voting with their feet by fleeing jihadi-controlled areas in droves.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tax slams &#8220;sections of the international left&#8221; for continuing to support the murderous theocracy in Iran despite its brutal repression of the &#8220;Green Revolution&#8221; of 2009-2010 and its attacks on labor unions and student and women&#8217;s groups.</p>
<p>In 2010, for example, 150 self-styled American &#8220;progressive activists,&#8221; led by former  Attorney General Ramsey Clark and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), sat down for a meal with Iran&#8217;s president at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during his visit to the United Nations. They did so to show their support for what Tax pointedly refers to as &#8220;his allegedly anti-imperialist stand.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>Left-wing supporters of Ahmadinejad are willing to overlook the fact that he is not only a dictator and fundamentalist but also a Holocaust denier; they also make other concessions to anti-Semitism.</p></blockquote>
<p>Tax argues that the London-based group Cageprisoners, which has been embraced by elements of the Left, is a front group that serves as a public relations agency for Islamists.</p>
<p>She appears to be correct. Cageprisoners is less interested in protecting the rights of those detained as prisoners of war than in freeing them so they can kill again to advance jihad.</p>
<p>In the mission statement on its website the group states that the site &#8220;was launched in October 2003 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by individual Muslim volunteers who came together for the reasons set out below.&#8221; The organization &#8220;exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror.&#8221;</p>
<p>Cageprisoners reveals its true goals in the choice of the prisoners it wants freed.</p>
<p>For example, the group&#8217;s website urges visitors to sign a petition for the release of convicted American terrorist enabler Lynne Stewart, the disbarred lawyer who helped the ringleader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Omar Abdel-Rahman, pass strategic messages to an Egyptian terrorist group.</p>
<p>Longtime activist Stewart, a Maoist who describes jihadists as freedom fighters, reportedly has advanced-stage cancer and her supporters are using her medical condition as an excuse to get her released early. If she were set free, the unrepentant Stewart would immediately get to work doing propaganda for America&#8217;s Islamist enemies. The irrepressible campaigner would arrange a press conference to denounce America during the trip home and would be barking orders to fellow community organizers over the phone during chemo treatments.</p>
<p>Tax too laments the long-term imprisonment at Guantanamo of terrorists by the U.S. &#8220;The continued use of the prison to keep some terrorist suspects in indefinite detention,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;is an everlasting blot on the human rights record of the US.&#8221;</p>
<p>Except that it&#8217;s not.</p>
<p>The author, like President Obama and almost all thinkers on the Left, foolishly treats the fight against Islamic terrorism as a law enforcement action. Tax won&#8217;t accept that it is perfectly moral and lawful under the internationally accepted laws of war for the U.S. to detain unlawful enemy combatants whose egregious conduct places them within in a special category of war criminals.</p>
<p>Despite Tax&#8217;s courage in taking a stand against Islamism and those on her own side who nurture and appease it, her thinking is flawed.</p>
<p>Tax believes the Islamic world is ripe for revolution and the Left can help nudge it into modernity. It&#8217;s going to take a lot more than pamphlets and pickets to free Muslims from their self-imposed chains. It&#8217;s going to require a sea change in thinking in the Ummah.</p>
<p>Good luck with that.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/a-leftists-harsh-words-for-the-unholy-alliance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>NYU Throws Out Blind Chinese Human Rights Activist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/nyu-throws-out-blind-chinese-human-rights-activist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=nyu-throws-out-blind-chinese-human-rights-activist</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/nyu-throws-out-blind-chinese-human-rights-activist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:25:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[building]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chen Guangcheng]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[expansion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NYU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thrown out]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=193176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The hammer of China's financial might comes down -- and the campus liberals obey. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ch_2235864b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-193178" alt="ch_2235864b" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ch_2235864b-450x281.jpg" width="315" height="197" /></a>The leftist-indoctrination centers that many of America&#8217;s college campuses have become added another despicable blot to their legacies yesterday. New York University (NYU) <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nyu_has_bad_case_of_china_syndrome_vfH5NC733GMAUeoFimKdbK">announced</a> that blind, Chinese political dissident Chen Guangcheng has been tossed off campus. According to the <i>NY Post,</i> the Communist government of China is applying the pressure, using NYU&#8217;s expansion of its campus to a facility in Shanghai as leverage. Chen&#8217;s presence at NYU has apparently rankled Chinese bureaucrats who signed off on the expansion permits. &#8220;NYU isn’t letting a pesky thing like human rights stand in the way of its expansion in China,&#8221; reports the <i>Post.</i></p>
<p>“The big problem is that NYU is very compromised by the fact they are working very closely with the Chinese to establish a university,” said one New York-based professor familiar with Chen’s situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity “That’s their liability,” the source added. “Otherwise, they would be much less constrained on issues like freedom of speech.”</p>
<p>University officials are denying the charge, claiming Chen’s presence on campus was never intended to be long-term, adding that the Chinese government had already signed off on the Shanghai project. “If there were outside pressure, why would we have taken him in the first place when his plight was on every front page in the world?” spokesman John Beckman said in a statement to the <i>Post.</i></p>
<p>If Chen&#8217;s presence wan&#8217;t meant to be long-term, then why did the <i>Washington Post</i> <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-06-18/world/35461766_1_blind-activist-chinese-legal-activist-chen-guangcheng">report</a> that the school had &#8220;custom-tailored Chen’s legal curriculum,&#8221; beginning in June 13, 2012? Considering Chen had to learn English first, and was slated to &#8220;make his way in the coming weeks from the Declaration of Independence toward constitutional law,&#8221; accomplishing both tasks in less than a year would be a Herculean effort. Furthermore, Chen is scheduled to visit Chinese nemesis Taiwan in the coming weeks &#8212; meaning pressure against NYU could have ratcheted up recently.</p>
<p>Chen has been an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/13/nyu-reportedly-kicking-out-blind-chinese-activist/">outspoken critic</a> of China&#8217;s human rights policies, speaking before a Congress on the subject. He also says that the Communist government has not lived up to the pledge it made to U.S. diplomats that members of his extended family who have remained in China would be treated in accordance with the law. Two of his relatives have apparently borne the brunt of government retaliation for Chen&#8217;s escape. His nephew, Chen Kegui, was sentenced to 39 months in jail following an altercation with local officials who reportedly stormed his parents&#8217; house. And his oldest brother, Chen Guangfu, reports that he and his family are constantly harassed by local thugs who have assaulted him, tossed dead animals onto the family&#8217;s property, and distributed insulting flyers about them.</p>
<p>Such treatment by the Chinese government is nothing new. While he was still in China, Chen was <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2012/05/02/the-sad-journey-of-chen-guangcheng/">illegally kept</a> under house arrest for four years. When he escaped with the help of human rights organizations, and ended up at America&#8217;s Embassy in Beijing, government officials demanded an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/02/us-officials-defend-decision-to-shelter-chinese-activist-amid-call-for-apology/">apology</a> for harboring him. &#8220;What the U.S. side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China, and the Chinese side will never accept it,&#8221; Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told China&#8217;s official Xinhua news agency.</p>
<p>At this point the story takes a curious twist. When Chen left the embassy, handing himself back to the Communist government, he checked into a hospital to get treatment for injuries caused by his escape. American diplomats reported Chen did so of his own free will, after they procured assurances from government officials that he would be safe. Yet in an interview given to the AP from his hospital bed, Chen declared that a U.S. official had told him the government would send his family back home, and beat his wife to death if he didn&#8217;t leave the embassy. &#8220;They said if I don&#8217;t leave they would take my children and family back to Shandong,&#8221; Chen told the AP, adding that the death threat was conveyed by an official he could not identify.</p>
<p>Embassy officials concurred with Chen&#8217;s statement that if he stayed in the embassy indefinitely, his family would have been sent home. But they denied passing on any threat of violence.</p>
<p>Chen&#8217;s dissident friends <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2012/05/02/chen-guangcheng-prevented-from-meeting-family-congressman/">backed</a> his version of the events, with his wife claiming that “what the media reported is wrong,” and characterizing the deal to return her husband to Chinese custody as “shameful.” She further noted that a widely reported message that Chen wanted to &#8220;kiss&#8221; then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ostensibly as a gesture of gratitude, was actually a demand to &#8220;see&#8221; her before he was returned to Chinese custody.</p>
<p>Chen&#8217;s eventual move to NYU was brokered by NYU law professor and China expert Jerome Cohen, the same man who designed his curriculum. Cohen is currently in China and could not be reached for comment. Chen has had little communication with NYU President John Sexton, who is chiefly responsible for the NYU&#8217;s expansion into Shanghai and Abu Dhabi. And despite university denials, insiders told the <em>Post</em> that the university sees itself as &#8220;increasingly vulnerable to pressure from China as the Shanghai campus project moves forward.&#8221;</p>
<p>Chen is currently in discussions with Fordham Law School in New York, to see if he can continue his studies at that school.</p>
<p>What the <i>Post</i> didn&#8217;t mention was Chen&#8217;s particular brand of human rights activism. He is ardently pro-life and highly critical of China&#8217;s forced sterilization policy. A 2005 <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2012/05/01/chen-guangchengs-documents-show-women-aborted-at-nine-months/">report</a> complied by Chen and his human rights team regarding coercive family planning in Linyi City, Shandong Province, included witness statements revealing several gruesome details about the policy. These included aborting and forcibly sterilizing a woman seven months pregnant; Family Planning Officials breaking three brooms over the head of an elderly man, and forcing a grandmother and her brother to beat each other up; people sleeping in fields to avoid those same officials; and the detention, fining and torture of extended family members of anyone who violates the nation&#8217;s One Child Policy.</p>
<p>In the progressive universe of college campuses like NYU, it is likely Chen&#8217;s pro-life efforts are viewed with a certain amount of apprehension, if not downright hostility.</p>
<p>In conjunction with Chen&#8217;s ouster, it is worth remembering that NYU recently rolled out the red carpet for another &#8220;dissident&#8221; apparently more in tune with the university&#8217;s worldview. In April, NYU <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/10/how-1960s-radicals-ended-up-teaching-your-kids.html">announced</a> that former Weather Underground member and convicted murderer Kathy Boudin would be named the university&#8217;s Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence. The <a href="http://www.law.nyu.edu/sheinbergscholar/index.htm">Rose Sheinburg Lecture Program</a> &#8220;invites a scholar working on cutting-edge issues of gender, race, and class to participate in a day of informal discussion, classroom teaching and formal lecture in order to expose the Law School community to a variety of ideas, insights, and initiatives.&#8221;</p>
<p>The biography of Boudin contained at the site is a pathetic example of historical revisionism. &#8220;Kathy Boudin has been dedicated to community involvement in social change since the 1960’s. She works for transformation of the criminal justice system through education, activism, and research and has published widely in the areas of  education, parenting, women, health, and restorative justice.&#8221; Other &#8220;insignificant” details omitted from this paean include the fact that Boudin spent 22 years in prison for an armored-car robbery&#8211;during which two policemen and Brinks guard were murdered.</p>
<p>At NYU, human rights champion Guangcheng Chen gets the boot even as a murderous thug like Kathy Boudin is lionized. In the ivied halls of academia, it doesn&#8217;t get any more intellectually bankrupt than that.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/nyu-throws-out-blind-chinese-human-rights-activist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 1491/1641 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 10:50:51 by W3 Total Cache -->